#however there is a lot of different possibilities that can dive into ideals and clashes of those ideals

[zorkaya-moved]

♡ if you're still accepting ! for koto !

@itorisen​

FRIENDS.   childhood friends  /  work friends  /  family friends  / recently friends  /  turning antagonistic  /  turning into something romantic /  stable  /  falling apart  /  friendship of need  /  friendship of circumstance / pen - pals or internet friends  /  coworkers  /  partners  /  other .

ROMANCE.   childhood sweethearts  /  newly entered  /  soulmates  /  skinny love  /  unrequited from my muses side  /  unrequited from your muses side  /  friends with benefits  /  awkward  /  fading  /  turning  toxic  /  toxic  and  destructive  /  other .

FAMILIAL BOND.   sibling bond  /  older sibling figure to your muse /  younger sibling figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  parental figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal  guardian  /  other .

ENEMIES.   dangerous to themselves  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  passionate  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into a sexual tension  /  developing into a romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based of misunderstandings or lies  /  other .

[hanadolphieron]

twice and the ceres asteriod~

ceres is all about food, nurturing, family relationships, animals, time-sharing, grief, and transitions/growth experiences in a woman’s life. 

taurus-

dahyun;

growth for dahyun appears when she has built a steady foundation. comfort and security are essential for her, but because of the synastry between her aries sun and taurus ceres, it can be hard for her to feel comfortable achieving it. she may unconsciously sabotage herself because she feels like she has to be strong and impulsive. her personality is fast-paced and energetic, but it tends to wear her out. reassurance is needed to be feel safe letting others take care of her.

physical affection is an important way of relaxation for dahyun. hugs are much appreciated. comfort food is a great way to calm her down. sustenance in general is needed, dahyun can not function if she doesn’t have a high enough blood sugar level. nerves begin to take over if she feels hungry. needs to feel completely secure to fully relax. can’t have anything hanging over her or she won’t be able to slow down. might keep working and working until she drops if she feels she doesn’t have financial stability.

nurturing others comes naturally however. dahyun is a solid presence and can calm people down with just a small touch. her hugs are the softest. seems reliable no matter what she’s going through. because of taurus’s ruling planet, venus, dahyun seems extra loving when she comforts others. people might take her physical touch in a romantic way sometimes.

gemini-

chaeyoung;

calming down for chaeyoung means having fun. letting go of all her nerves and fears is like a spa treatment for her. friends are important. she somehow feels extremely relaxed while taking in masses of information. is constantly on the move. her preferred aesthetic is tied to her comfort. she likes the idea of being free to do whatever she wants and have whatever moods she wants.

however, like dahyun, her taurus sun can restrict this vibe. she feels as if the free-spirited persona that she feels most relaxed in clashes with her true self. it can seem time-consuming and exhausting to let go of nerves and fears, yet that’s what her taurus self is constantly trying to do. can sometimes let her fears control her because that seems like the easier option, the one with less drama. 

please hug her! chaeyoung loves people that come barreling towards her and absolutely attack her with love. nurtures others by hanging out with them and creating a fun, healthy atmosphere. can seem boundary-less at times, but she’s probably panicking inwardly i don’t make the rules. might randomly talk about trauma/issues that she has and then either forget about it or pretend it never happened. speaking up is a good way for her to release negative/draining emotions and it helps her become more confident.

cancer-

tzuyu;

mom material at its finest. tzuyu is a natural at making people feel safe and happy. is always there as a shoulder to cry on and people feel safe relying on her. she does protect herself from relying on others however, and prefers to be the nurturer rather than the on being nurtured. loves the idea of taking care of others and being of service comes naturally. loves kids and wants to help them grow and become the best versions of themselves.

growth happens when tzuyu utilizes her divine feminine energy. being aggressive and impulsive does not help her. growth comes from learning from quick decisions that didn’t end well and learning to slow down and think before acting. however, she doesn’t seem to struggle much with this; she seems to be pretty evolved.

in tzuyu’s opinion, being nurtured by someone means letting out her emotions to the person and them validating her feelings and empathizing with her. she wants to be around people that understand her without her having to explicitly tell them her feelings. observing tzuyu and learning her coping mechanisms is the best way to make her feel loved. prefers to deal with issues on her own or talk to very close loved ones.

libra- 

nayeon;

nayeon feels comforted by connecting with others and creating partnerships. having people by her side makes her feel safe. ice cream and other confections are therapy for nayeon. friends are important for her mental and emotional health. having a significant other is beneficial as well. not becoming lost in her inner self and staying on the surface is one of her coping mechanisms. doesn’t like to take deep, messy dives into her emotions.

she is incredibly nurturing (such a great unnie) by nature and her way of comforting others is lovely; lots of people are attracted by her motherly qualities. uses her words as a way to help others. possible issues could be that her help and nurturing is romanticized and can be made shallow. people could take advantage of her caring nature easily, as she finds it hard to say no to people in need.

nayeon improves the most when she is “aesthetic.” anything that is pleasing to feel/do is the right path for nayeon. helping out others and being of service in a strong way is going to keep her on the right track. righting injustices is part of her destiny. perfection is always an ideal that’s in mind for nayeon.

sagittarius- 

jeongyeon and momo;

these two release stress by sweating it out. activity clears their mind and stops negative thoughts. they tend to run from their problems at times or procrastinate doing hard work because it can seem overwhelming. not having an escape is what bothers them. however, since they’re both scorpios, this aspect of a sagittarius ceres is restricted and not as apparent. 

having ceres in the same sign as pluto can cause some karma. momo and jeongyeon might have serious issues slowing down and growing boundlessly at the same time. can keep pushing to achieve something they don’t truly find appealing, especially with the aspect between scorpio sun and sagittarius ceres. 

jeongyeon tends to protect her healing from the world, but a lot of it seeps to the surface and is noticeable to others. her cancer moon makes her want to feel protected and have a safe space to conceal herself, but her sagittarrius ceres is like run! now! get away from boundaries of all kinds! this can create a deep-running sense of confusion surrounding her knowledge of herself. shadow work could help her a lot.

momo’s growth is centered around broad dreams and aspirations. she is a neptune decan scorpio, which can help the tension between her ceres sign and sun sign. it’s easier for her to look at growing and improving herself from a detached but extremely emotional level. listening to music is huge for her, and can help her figure herself out. also freestyle dancing! is very natural for her and she feels powerful and very “momo” when she does it. 

capricorn- 

sana;

good for sana, her ceres sign conjuncts her sun sign, a favorable combination due to the similarities and connection between herself and her relationship with the material world and emotional growth. she needs relaxation and comfort for her well-being and for her personality to shine through accurately. however, this isn’t too hard for her, as the life that she wants to lead is in line with the life that energizes her the most.

sana feels comforted by constructive criticism or a healthy pushing and motivation that keeps her on track but is also sensitive to her moods. her leo moon and virgo mars can make her irritated by others being overly critical or disinterested in her struggles, but loved ones that know her well and can give her support is appreciated. it’s hard to explain, but sana just wants someone who will leave her alone to fix problems herself, but who can give her advice (only if she wants it!) and can empathize without pitying her.

sana comforts others the same way. she may have a tendency to end up being more self-focused when sympathizing with others and likes to share her experiences. might be aware of it, might not, it depends. she doesn’t mean it in a bad way, it’s just natural for her to include herself in these sorts of conversations and give advice. capricorn in ceres individuals might seem almost aloof at first, if you don’t know them, but once you’ve become close to them you can see through them and their motives easily. i find capricorns tend to be misunderstood a lot, as they have a lot going on, but you just have to guess? i don’t know. they’re hard to explain but you just know.

aquarius- 

jihyo and mina;

jihyo and mina are destined to experience epiphanies related to self-discovery and individuality consistently throughout their life. they’re perpetually living in a state of learning. working in groups is the best way for them to improve upon themselves. helping others and being of service to the community inspires them. looking into topics that aren’t mainstream are a good way to attract growth too. they might mature backwards or have an up-and-down process of experiencing emotions. 

jihyo may feel misunderstood at times. her way of relaxing is different than others and she may feel as if her moods vary too much from the moods of others. as i said in the first paragraph for this section, jihyo matures at a weird consistency. comfort comes from feeling like she belongs, but is still her own person. needs to be “noticed” but still feel like the underdog? confusing i know. wants to feel needed. being the leader of twice is incredibly beneficial to her health:)

mina can feel lost in terms of comfort. she may not need as much alone time as others, and feels more energized around groups of people, but finds it also wears her out because of the way her energy levels and moods fluctuate. so i take back what i said, she does need alone time. like a balance. but she struggles to maintain that balance. like jihyo, mina needs to feel needed. humanitarian activities and helping the community is good for her emotional stability.

both comfort others by making them feel important. tends to do well in teaching positions and as a mentor. extremely good leaders! they are comforting and know the people around them incredibly well without even realizing it. sympathizing is not exactly their strong point most of the time, they might seem too cold because they don’t want to pity the person, but they do know how to collectively energize a bunch of people and make them feel safe and relaxed.

[c0smicheaux]

Natal Retrograde Placements via Katieturner.love

Mercury- A natal Mercury retrograde will make it important to think your words out carefully before speaking. Maybe you tend to stick your foot in your mouth, or have trouble communicating as clearly as you need or want to. This is because Mercury wants you to carefully pass your thoughts through your filter to decide what is truly deserving of being expressed. You have a lot of great thoughts to contribute to the world, but a retrograde Mercury asks you to take the time to carefully refine your message so you say exactly what you need it to say. A lot of musicians have a retrograde mercury, showing that it doesn’t stop you from having a successful voice. You may also find that you really don’t have a lot of energy for the things that are fleeting. Mercury usually moves in rapid bursts, and you can too, but it happens on an internal level first. Your hobbies and your day trips tend to matter because you might not have a lot of energy for them. Mercury also rules our siblings, so it’s possible with this placement that your relationship with them is rocky, though not doomed by any means.

Venus- your ability to harmonize and find beauty must first go inward. You have to learn to love yourself and find a partnership with yourself before you can form strong partnerships with others. This means that the energy you have for balancing outward partnerships can feel a little low. It is important that you are careful in selecting the partnerships you select, allowing them to come from a place of self-love. This is a position that will not allow you to just pass through life without learning to love yourself first. You may find that you need a lot of time away from partnerships, or that you really rather not keep that many deep relationships and that is perfectly fine. For you quality over quantity is important. Venus retrograde is a sign that if you are searching for love, which most of us, to start from within. The rest will follow. With retrograde energy, once you learn how to truly manifest it to its highest power, you can do amazing things. You have so much love, so allow yourself to embrace it.

Mars- Mars rules your physical energy. It is masculine energy, or the energy we have for the outward world. It’s the energy we have to put our heart into action. When this energy is retrograde, it becomes inward. When you move the energy dedicated towards outward expression and direct it inward things can clash. When it comes to anger, you tend to bottle things up, deeming them not worthy of bringing outwards. This causes things to explode over something small and people are going to be confused about why you are so upset over such a little thing, but that’s because it wasn’t just one little thing, it was a thousand little things that you just tried to ignore. You may find that you often have to internally hype yourself up for physical activity. Ultimately if you’re going to do something that requires any physical strain, it better be worth it. With this placement, you learn how important it is to try to speak up for yourself as you go along. Anger doesn’t have to come out in an explosion like a volcano. Anger can mean walking away until you can find some grounding, and then reproaching the situation in a level way, communicating why you are so upset and how you want to work towards fixing the issue. Take care not to beat yourself up so much, try to direct some of that highly masculine, yet frustratingly introverted energy in some more constructive ways.

Jupiter- it can feel like the outward world doesn’t always have your back like it does for others. Finding luck may be a little bit harder for you, but that is because luck isn’t actually luck, its people letting their gut guide them and it working. For you, letting your instincts and intuition lead you somewhere doesn’t come as natural for you as it does for others. It may be harder for you to quiet down all the voices of the world to get to the heart of what your soul is trying to tell you, but as long as you look inward, it is there. Take the time to let yourself expand internally. You have a whole unexplored world inside of you. You may find that your thirst for adventure doesn’t really manifest all that often outward, but it can inward. Listen to what your soul wants, what path it sees for you, and then take care to bring it into the world. You can be lucky too, as long as you truly seek out where your opportunities lie. Learn to ask yourself why and listen to the answers, rather than searching for the truth out in the world. You have everything you need to walk your path, but it starts from within.

Saturn- With a retrograde Saturn, your father may not have been the best at teaching you how to create a career for yourself. For you, it is important to turn inward to find inner discipline and structure. If you try to build a career without first creating your own inward structure it will be hard. You have something great to offer the world and the public, but it is up to you to carefully refine it internally first. Find out what type of structure works for you. You probably won’t be the type of person who agrees with authority, and that is perfectly fine. You can be your own boss, but first you have to define what that means for you. What is the career that you want to build, and what kind of inner structure are you going to have to find to build this career, and then go after it.

Uranus- it can be hard to stand up for your oddities in the face of society. First you must challenge your own status quo before you can challenge society’s status quo. It is important for you to learn to embrace the unexpected, the weird, and the unconventional in yourself. When you do that, you learn to value inner differences so much more. That gives you a lot more fuel to the fire when you challenge the world. While initially it can be difficult to rebel against your own inner ideals of what is right and what is wrong, once you learn to work with the changes, you can help the rest of society in very powerful ways. Your appreciation for Uranus energy is so much higher, and that is beneficial to the people in and of its self. Until you master this energy, however, you may find a lot of very sudden and internal upheavals. These are signals to you that somethings can no longer work for you, and it is time to move forward.

Neptune-it can be hard to understand people on a soul level. First you must blur your own internal boundaries and get to know yourself on an even more inner and personal level than a direct Neptune placement. It may be hard to have a spiritual connection on the outward surface as well, and this is because you must first find that connection inward. You have to first establish your relationship with your own soul before you connect to the collective. There can be a fear of seeing things in a positive light, the proverbial rose colored glasses that Neptune gives us that allows us to take chances on ideas and people that may be worth it needs to be first directed inward. You have to first build up the courage to take a chance on your own soul, and then extend that outward to others. When you begin to look at yourself from a position of understanding and unconditional love, your empathetic connection to others deepens. You have a beautiful ability to find value in human souls, but it must start from your own.

Pluto-you try to control yourself, rather than others, to avoid pain. You may limit your transformations because you’ve learned to fear loss, and that includes the loss of parts of yourself. It is important for you to embark on these major internal transformation though. You will always be you at your core, that will never change, so trust that these internal changes are what you need. The more you try to control your energy and how you express yourself and where you open up to others, the more you will find yourself being hurt. You may also be afraid of diving into the darkest parts of who you are, however it is important for you to understand these parts of you. If you try to ignore them, you won’t understand how to work with them, giving them more opportunities to hold you back. As you learn to walk through your shadows, you will find intimacy with other people becoming easier. Trusting other people, despite their shadows, because you trust yourself, despite your own shadows, to always be okay, is what truly matters. You can form deep bonds with people, so make sure they come from a place of love and understanding, not of fear and control.

[mimzy-writing-online]

Writing Blind or Visually Impaired Characters: Narrative

Before I get started, I want to refer you back to part one of this post which covers how to craft your blind character. The reason for this referral is because it involves determining what caused your character to go blind and what they see themselves. What your blind or visually impaired character is capable of seeing is crazy important to what kind of narrative you’re using.

Link to the Master Post: https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185122795699/writing-a-blind-or-visually-impaired-character

Link to Part One, Crafting your Character: https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185123396964/writing-a-blind-or-visually-impaired-character

Every post I make about writing blind characters, both now and future, will be tagged #blindcharacter on my blog. Follow this blog for more writing advice.

Disclaimer: I have been visually impaired for the last two years of my life, and I have written with two blind characters, using specifically their first person POV, so this is really getting into my experience there. This will also involve some real life experience and memories that I, a visually impaired person, have.

Narrative Choice

If your character is the main character than you have to make the choice between writing in first person and writing in third person. If you character is a secondary character or a background character, narrative choice won’t be as important, but you still need to be aware of what they can see in a particular moment and scene because it will affect how they act in that moment.

First Person

I personally think writing a blind character in first person is always the ideal. This allows your readers to inhabit the character and see what they see, or don’t see. Readers want to temporarily experience someone else’s life, and if they’re reading a story with a blind main character then they want to experience that person’s life fully.

There are drawbacks. You have to work in terms of what your character can and cannot perceive. That can make scene description hard (I will include tips for that down below) and it can be easy to slip up and forget that your character shouldn’t be able to see the color of someone’s eye, their smile, a passing street sign, the color of a gifted scarf. You have to learn to work inside their limits. If there are places you mess up and accidentally write them perceiving too much with their sight, then all you need to do is edit.

Again, there will be narrative tips for first person down below.

Third Person

The drawback to third person is the inability to inhabit the life of your character. It’s much easier to slip up and include things your character shouldn’t be able to see. Your readers will probably forget how blind your character is if they read pages and pages with great visual description and then be surprised when your character verbally remarks that they didn’t see X and Y and Z. You still have to work with what your character can realistically see and it’s much easier to forget if you’re watching their life from a bird’s eye view instead of through their eyes.

Third person is something I would recommend if it is your preferred writing style and you struggle with first person. I would still recommend at least trying first person before you nix the idea.

Again, narrative choice isn’t as crucial if your blind character isn’t your main character.

Describing the Visual World through your Blind Character in First Person

This is where thoroughly visualizing what your character can and cannot see because hugely important. Even if your character only has light and shadow perception left, there are plenty of ways to give visuals to your character’s world.

Some of this might even sound like cheating.

Depending on how old your character was when they went blind, they may still remember what it was like to have sight. Yes, this sounds like cheating, but it’s very possible that your character might remember what their home, neighborhood, friends, and family look like. However they may eventually forget and that depends largely on time. I’m jumping back to Molly Burke real quick. 

Her YouTube channel here (since it’s the first mention of her in this specific part of the post): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwf9TcLyS5KDoLRLjke41Hg

Molly lost most of her vision when she was 14, but before that she did see colors and nature and what her family looked like (she was always legally blind though, since birth) but Molly is 25 now and it’s been ten years now since she lost the rest of her vision. She doesn’t remember what colors look like or what certain animals look like now because she hasn’t seen them in 10 years. She knows which colors look nice together, but that’s from years of social learning, people saying what colors they think look good together and which colors clash. So if it’s been a long time since your character lost their vision, or if they moved away from the town they grew up in, they probably don’t have any visual memory to use.

Your readers will create their own scenery automatically. They already do with sighted narrators. No matter how thoroughly you describe a room or a house or a beach they will always see it with their mind, and their mind will always use the things they know to see. (I personally use layouts of houses I’ve been to before when reading a book with a character who lives in a house, and same with apartments that I’ve been in, and my mind’s picture is never identical to the writer’s but that can’t be helped.)

So your readers know what a suburban neighborhood looks like. They know what a beach looks like, or a forest, or a meadow of flowers, or a late fall afternoon looks like. They know what schools, hospitals, department stores, and restaurants look like. Their brains will automatically fill in the narrative gaps with the details that belong there, you just have to tell them where they are, or where the character understands themselves to be.

A trick for triggering the right mental picture in just a few words: Use location, mood, time of day, how crowded it is, and aesthetic. A quiet and peaceful beach versus a crowded beach littered with trash. Two different settings, but described in only a few words. A modern, busy coffee shop versus a relaxed hipster coffee shop. Loud nightclub? Smokey jazz lounge? Dark dive bar? Dingy public bathroom? Clean, modern bathroom? They all invoke different images in your head based on past experiences you’ve had but I only used a few words for each location.

Unless you’re like me and have absolutely no experience with nightclubs and have no idea what they’re like because you’re not about that life, so whatever you picture is based off Oliver Queen’s bar on Arrow because you’ve seen enough clips of it.

Things your character will always know (unless in special circumstance)

-Location (unless they were kidnapped or blacked out and woke up somewhere new, in which case you get to decide how they figure out where they are)

-Time of day (unless drugged or just particularly awful with time keeping like me)

-North, East, South, West (blind people are better at this than sighted people actually. They teach themselves to be so they don’t get lost.)

-Season and climate they live in

-If where they are is crowded or deserted or somewhat populated, and if the current amount of people is odd for this particular location and time.

That is enough to get a setting started, but then you add in non-sight sensory details.

Your character’s other senses can pick up the other details.

They’ll hear the leaves crunching under their feet and scraping against the pavement as they move their cane, hear the traffic or the kids playing in the park or the footsteps behind them on a quiet street or the skateboards whizzing past. They’ll feel the sand under their fingers, the soft sink of grass under their sneakers, slippery mud, the cracked pavement or the bumpy asphalt under their cane, or the peeled paint on the wall chipping under their nails, or sticky syrup on the table they didn’t see before they put their hand there. They’ll feel the sun on their cheeks. They’ll feel the chill of the wind. They’ll smell the food in the restaurant they’re visiting, or smell the pinesol floor cleaner, or the smelly dumpster they’re passing, or the wet dirt after rain. (When I walk outside I usually can smell the wet dirt before I see the wet puddles on the ground) Their senses can add details their eyes never could.

As a writer in general, you need to get use to using all five senses when writing, but consider this the extra mile where you use them to compensate for the lack of visual description.

Describing Conversations without Sight

That sounds like a contradiction, but there’s a lot more sight involved in a conversation than you think. Somewhere between 60 and 90% of communication is non verbal (I’ve heard multiple versions of this statistic and I can’t be bothered to look it up again myself)

This means what your characters are saying isn’t the only information you’re getting. Sighted people can use body posture and facial expression to get a feeling on someone’s mood during a conversation. A frown or a smile, crossed arms, sharp and agitated arm gestures or flowing and light arm gestures. Rolled eyes, annoyed looks, shared glances, funny faces, all of it. In some cases your blind character might see the smile or the body posture, if they have enough sight to allow for that, but if they don’t?

Your character doesn’t know who’s smiling or frowning, or what their friends look like when they do those things. Shared glances aren’t possible and your character won’t notice their friend rolling their eyes.

(Not unless their specific amount of vision allows them to sometimes see these facial expressions, such as when they’re very close and the lighting is good)

Your character is using vocal tone and word choice to find the emotion of the speaker. Fast talking implies urgency or excitement. Broken sentences or stuttering implies anxiety, shyness, guilt, lying, agitation. Calm tones, slow talking, and light laughter implies easy conversation with no tension. Mispronounced words or slurred words imply drunkenness, exhaustion, or injury.

Friends and Family Sometimes Fill in the Details You Don’t See

This is personal experience I’m writing from. It’s very common for my friends and family to point visual details out for me when I’m out and about, especially if they’re details I would care about seeing or that would make me happy to know, and these are all real things they’ve mentioned to me.

“There’s an orange cat on that roof.” “There’s a really nice garden over there, lots of roses.” “There’re two kids outside playing with light sabers.” “There are parrots in the trees above us.” “There’s a street performer across the street.” “There’s another person walking by with a cane twenty feet away from you.” (This happened yesterday before my last class of the semester, so fresh memory) “Oh, there are pride flags hanging from that building.” (that was last summer on a drive through a nearby town during June, and I was very happy about it)

Or mentioning things that might be a hazard for me- “There’s a big crowd coming up.” “We’re walking into the parking lot now” “There are some orange cones ahead” “There’s a nearby ladder, walk to your right.” “There are some skateboarders coming towards us.”

Or mentioning social things of interest- “That person is checking you out.” (flirting) “That person is staring at you.” (rude) “There’s a cute guy/girl over there.” “Friend A does not look like they’re enjoying talking to friend B.” or “Friends A and C are dancing/smoking outside/laughing/staring at their phones.” Anything really.

Sometimes it’s things that are inappropriate and rude and judgey, but trust me when I say that people will tell you about it when you can’t see it. “Wow, that girl’s outfit is terrible.” or “Wow her roots are bad.” or “That dude looks like he hasn’t shaved and showered in a month.” or “I don’t like this tattoos.” or “He looks like a troll.” If your blind character has a companion who’s especially judgey, these might be things they say.

Identifying Other People in a Conversation

Here’s an important question. Does your character see enough to identify someone by their face or body or walking style? No? Here’s what you need-

If a good friend or a nice classmate walks up to your character, they should say, “Hey Matt, it’s Kara” or introduce themselves somehow so that your character knows who they’re talking to, and then the conversation starts.

If you’re going to tell me that your character recognizes everyone by the sound of their voice, I’m going to tell you that you’re wrong.

Humans aren’t capable of producing super unique vocal tones and ranges that set them apart from the other 7 billion here, and humans, (even the super powered blind people I’m going to tell you to avoid writing in part three) even blind humans are not capable of recognizing everyone’s voice.

Your character might recognize a specific voice if its- 

1) Their parents or their siblings or their best friends or their teachers, maybe. I can’t pick my mom’s voice out in a crowd, so obviously that’s not a guarantee 

2) They might recognize someone if they have a recognizable accent that few other people in your character’s life have. American friend in the U.K. or a Russian classmate in America with an accent.

3) That person has an exceptionally high or low voice that really stands out. Not likely though.

If they do recognize that person, they probably only recognize them in context. I recognize teacher’s voices if I’m in the specific part of campus I normally see them in. I recognize some -some- of my classmate’s voices if I’m physically in that class, but I’d never pick them out of a voice line up on a different side of campus. I recognize actors voices if I’m watching TV (actually, it’s more that I recognize dialogue of movies and tv shows I’ve watched before and remember who played what part)

In certain circumstances, yes, maybe your character would recognize someone’s voice. Please use the “Hi Matt, it’s Kara, have you finished the homework yet?” method because it’s so much more reliable and I would love it it the people who read your works learn to start introducing themselves that way to their blind friends.

Obviously, not all of your characters will know to introduce themselves to you this way, or may forget, but hopefully your blind character has taught their friends well enough to do that.

I will leave that as Part Two. It’s been five hours since I started this project and it’s way past midnight. Feel free to leave me asks about writing blind characters. I will always be happy to answer your asks.

Follow this blog for more writing advice (and not just for blind characters)

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 120

Episode: Futari wa Precure Splash Star 22 - “Super Surprising! Michiru and Kaoru’s Shocking Confession!!” Date watched: 11 May 2019 Original air date: 9 July 2006 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/5PEq8nL Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Before we begin, would anyone like to go on a feels trip?

If you hear the sound of gross sobbing in the background while reading this review, don’t worry it’s just me. Michiru and Kaoru are talking with Gohyaan and Akudaikaan about their failure the previous episode. Akudaikaan loses his temper, lashing out at all in the room and reminding M and K with no uncertainty exactly what their purpose is. He warns them not to hinder his ambitions ever again and they hastily leave. While they stand on Gourd Rock to ruminate some, Gohyaan appears and taunts them some more about their closeness with Precure. He reminds them that if they defeat the heroines, all their problems will be solved.

The next day at school, Mai is quiet and ponderous because she believes the Kiryuus might be from Dark Fall, but she tries to dismiss this notion. The sisters show up and repeatedly flare up their powers, causing Flappi to scream at the burst in dark energy at inconvenient moments (like the middle of a test).

evil eyes: on

Saki and Mai try to talk to the fairies in the hallway, but the sisters appear and Mai hurries off. Saki tells Kaoru that Minori wants to hang out with her again, and asks Michiru to tutor her in math. Their faces soften and they both agree to these things. Then she invites them out to the Sky Tree after school. The sisters go outside and Kaoru reminds her sister that if they wait to defeat Precure, their frustrations might return, but Minori shows up before they can do anything. She is super excited to see Kaoru and explains that she and her mother are there on a delivery to the school, so they may as well go watch Saki’s practice.

a wild Minori appears

They head behind the school near the practice fields, and Mai walks out of the building, notices the three of them, and tucks away to see what’s going on. A stray softball is coming right at Minori’s head, and Kaoru quickly makes it disappear. Mai notices this but before she can say anything, Minori notices her and Saki comes up, asking about the ball. Michiru and Kaoru deny any knowledge, so Saki shrugs it off and invites all of her friends to the Sky Tree while Minori heads off to find her mother again. 

When they get there, she instructs all of them to squish themselves against the tree, and feel the calming and positive energy it exudes.

literal tree huggers

Michiru and Kaoru reminisce about the good times they’ve had in the land of greenery, as well as remembering the threat of Akudaikaan. (see the full video at the top) After questioning why she brought them here, Saki says that it’s where she met all of them, so it seems like a special place, and then continues “Do I really need a reason to invite my friends to the Sky Tree?” This surprises the sisters as they’ve never thought of themselves as friends before. They seem genuinely happy for a moment before they remember they’ve got a mission. They clench their fists and this causes Flappi and Choppi to go crazy, so Mai and Saki quickly excuse themselves to talk. Mai tries to explain to Saki that she thinks the siblings are from Dark Fall but the fairies keep interrupting, and Kaoru insists to Michiru that they have to do this. It’s clearly hard for both of them, but they insist to each other that they are proud warriors of Dark Fall, and they prepare their attack.

the absolute anguish

Saki and Mai feel the intense dark energy approaching them and transform before they can even learn who their opponent is.... and so the reveal is that much more dramatic. But the twins do show themselves this time, and there’s no turning back. Bloom is shocked, Egret is more dejected that her hunch was right.

and look at this gorgeous shot. (textless version in the gallery)

Bloom insists that they don’t have to fight, but the Kiryuus insist that they’re from different worlds, and their only purpose for existing is to destroy the Precures and enact Akudaikaan’s will, so they attack. Bloom and Egret block, but refuse to fight back, which angers Michiru and Kaoru. They exchange ideals with the cures, who maintain that they can still be friends, but the twins retaliate that, as all life comes to an end eventually, their vision of a world of ruin, with no life at all, is actually ideal. Egret retaliates by asking Kaoru why she saved Minori earlier that day, and both cures remind them of the nice things they’ve done and promised they’d continue to do, to prove that they’re not truly evil. Saki insists that they’re all friends before they’re warriors, either of peace or of Dark Fall, and she refuses to fight her friends. The speech seems to be working, you can see that Michiru and Kaoru are being swayed, but they are still too afraid of the consequences of failure and double down on their words, before leaping into the air and diving towards the Precures, as the scene freezes and the credits begin to play.

Here we are, at the emotional peak of the journey of Michiru and Kaoru. All the cards are out on the table and they have made the choice (under duress) to put aside their personal feelings and emotional attachments and fight Saki and Mai. I honestly think this hurts them more than the Precures, because deep down, they don’t want to do this, and as much as they try to bury their feelings, they can’t help but to bleed through. There’s a clear hesitation that wasn’t there when they debuted, and they barely hide their emotional attachments to Saki and Mai. They no longer call each other out for helping, making connections, and otherwise getting involved in the lives of the heroines. They hype themselves into fighting, and maintain that they have a responsibility to Akudaikaan even when it’s clear that this goal differs from their desires. They take pause at Saki and Mai’s rejections of their fate and insistence that they’re still friends. They don’t want to do this, but they feel like they have no choice.

Normally, Michiru wears the mask and puts on the act of being friendly to the humans but secretly dismissing them, while Kaoru is more straightforward about her feelings, good or bad. It’s because of this difference in personality that Kaoru is the first one to insist that they drop all pretenses at the Sky Tree and defeat Saki and Mai, while Michiru is initially reluctant (and borderline crying).

seeing them display this kind of emotion would have been unfathomable a few weeks ago

She knows their mission deep down, but she’s allowed her friendly persona to become part of her, and she doesn’t want to fight them. At the same time, Kaoru reminds her that there’s no choice. Regardless of their feelings, they will always be warriors of Dark Fall and that’s the duty they have to fulfill. I don’t want this to read as though Kaoru simply doesn’t care, though. Arguably, she cares even more, but because she doesn’t hide her true self as much as her sister, she is better equipped to see the options in front of them: they cannot keep dodging this matter, they have to confront Saki and Mai and admit that they’re from Dark Fall. If they don’t, Akudaikaan will destroy them himself. Neither of them thinks that their friends will be accepting of their identities, because they come from the side that has been trying to destroy them and everything they care about so how could they possibly remain friends? It’s kill or be killed, so Michiru and Kaoru choose to take a stand for their lives rather than their true principles. However, Bloom and Egret’s refusal to engage and fight back does start to sway them. Mai calls out their hypocrisy particularly well:

The villains are given pause by this, for a moment they falter and lower their guard. Mai has seen through their facade, and wants them to realize the truth they’re denying about themselves. It almost works, but when Saki calls them their “friends,” that triggers a response. That level of intimacy is still too uncomfortable to them, they won’t allow themselves to become close to anybody but each other, and this challenge to their core beliefs makes them retaliate. They reiterate that they were created, given life, for only one purpose: to serve Dark Fall. If they aren’t enacting Akudaikaan’s will, they are betraying that purpose, and don’t deserve to even exist at all.  So they fight back, out of fear and loyalty. The villains who fight against their own hearts, and the heroines who refuse to fight because of theirs. What will be the outcome of this clash of ideals? Find out in the next review.

There is one bit of symbolism involving Michiru and Kaoru that I only just realized this episode, and I am furious at myself for not catching it sooner, with how much I’ve talked about other symbolism involving them:

If you’re standing in the teacher’s position, Kaoru sits in the back left corner, Michiru in the seat ahead of her, Mai sits in the back right corner, and Saki sits in front of Mai. Their positions mirror each other, in much the same way as Michiru and Kaoru are mirrors of Saki and Mai. If I were to read further into it, Saki and Mai sit by the window (the light) while the Kiryuus are furthest from the sun’s light, representing their dark nature. I do not know if there’s some Japanese mythology, folklore, or superstition about what side of the room you sit on, beyond the obvious anime trope that the second-from-the-back on the left is the Main Character Seat so they can stare out the window.

Before I wrap up, have some truly sincere Michiru and Kaoru expressions:

The next review will either be tomorrow, or in a week. I want to do some comparing and contrasting with Kiriya’s arc in FWPC, but I don’t think I’ll have a lot of free time tomorrow to write, and as I mentioned, I’ll be on a road trip for a few days. Hopefully I’ll be able to jot something down, I want to wrap up the Kiryuu arc before the trip so I can start into the back half of the show when I return. We’ll see where the wind blows. Whenever the review comes, look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0 Zekkouchou Nari!

Miracle Drop Count: 1

[internetandnetwork]

Understanding Subdomain vs. Subdirectory: Which Is Best for SEO?

In the SEO world, one of the biggest controversies is Subdomain vs. Subdirectory.

Which one works best for SEO? Does it really matter? If a blog is currently hosted on your subdomain, should you shift it into a subdirectory? What is Google’s stand on this?

These were just a couple of questions picked from the heaps of most commonly asked questions within the SEO community, which usually receive clashing responses.

But don’t worry, we have got your back.

In this blog, we will try and clear up this confusion and help put an end to this ongoing debate once and for all. We will go in-depth on this matter and basically look at:

What Are Subdomain and Subdirectory?

Where Does This Confusion Come From?

What Is Google’s Take on Subdomain vs. Subdirectory?

Subfolders: The Debate

Subfolders: The Challenges

Conclusion: Subdomain or Subdirectory – Which One Is Right for Me?

WHAT ARE SUBDOMAIN AND SUBDIRECTORY?

Before we dive right into which one is better for SEO – subdomains or subdirectories, let us first go through the technical difference between both quickly.

For example, blog.yourdomain.com is a subdomain, while yourdomain.com/blog/ is a subdirectory.

Basically, think of subdomain (which is also called subfolder) as the offspring of the parent domain, and at times, they are used to host blogs, separate mobile websites, quote forms, eCommerce stores (when they’re part of a larger website, internationalization (separate sites to target separate markets), and so on.

Take a look at the subdirectory or subfolder example once again and see how the “/blog/” is seated within the main domain i.e., “yourdomain.com” indicating that it is part of the main site just like any other web page. Therefore, in essence, the subfolder is just another page on the website.

On the other hand, if you look at the subdomain, it is seated outside of the main domain. It lies within its own partition of yourdomain.com. In the given example, the site is using the subdomain to host a blog.

Simply put, when looking at a URL, the subdomain will always lie before the origin domain, while the subdirectory will always lie after it.

If you are not certain about the number of subdomains your website is using presently, or whether it is even using one at all, you can use one of the site auditing tools available in the market and check your website structure.

This brings us to our next topic. What is the reason behind this major “Subdomain vs. Subdirectory” debate within the SEO community? And when it comes to SEO ranking, is one better than the other? If yes, then which one?

Let’s dive in!

WHERE DOES THIS CONFUSION COME FROM?

First of all, let’s straighten out one fact; your site’s structure substantially influences your organic search performance.

Choosing between a subdomain and a subfolder for specific areas of your website can actually boost or obstruct your capability to prompt growth. But likewise, there are some situations where hosting part of your website on a subdomain is only logical.

So this is somewhat an “it depends” situation. You must grasp the various usage scenarios and how they can significantly influence your website’s organic performance.

This brings us back to the original question once again – where does this confusion come from then?

This argument is triggered by the fact Google regards subdomains as separate units to the root domain, mostly because a few sites put distinct content on subdomains that should not really belong to the main website. And if truth be told, in some cases, people controlling the main domain are different from the people controlling the subdomain.

So going back to the example we discussed above:

The subdomain blog.yourdomain.com is not regarded as part of your main domain i.e. yourdomain.com by Google.

The subdirectory yourdomain.com/blog/ is regarded as part of your main domain yourdomain.com by Google.

This implies that the content, along with its valuable assets like backlinks, you are hosting on a subdomain, are not being considered by Google’s algorithm while ranking your main domain on the search results.

It is almost as if the content you have hosted on that subdomain is hosted on a completely separate domain for ranking objectives. And when we look at it in this way, it helps clear things up a little bit.

Even though it may not strike as being a good thing to some people, at times, it only sounds logical for subdomains to be treated as a different unit to the main domain, particularly when the subdomains are portraying a different business or sections.

While usually a subdomain is linked to the root domain, either through internal links or a navigation menu, sometimes it won’t be. This is an essential component when determining which path you should take when building your website or its new division.

WHAT IS GOOGLE’S TAKE ON SUBDOMAIN VS. SUBDIRECTORY?

This is certainly not about saying that subfolders are better for SEO and subdomains are not. It isn’t that straightforward.

Nevertheless, we must understand where the various recommendations come from and how they measure up to Google’s guidance.

Back in 2017, John Mueller, Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, discussed this subdomain vs. subdirectory confusion in a video and the advice has not changed since then.

He revealed that whether websites are using subdomains or subdirectories, Google is fine with either.

SUBFOLDERS: THE DEBATE

The chances are that you are wondering that if Google itself says it’s fine with websites using either subdomains or subdirectories, what is the point of this debate after all?

In order to answer this question, we need to review two of the top three ranking factors of Google:

Content

Links

Simply because Google says that it is fine with websites using either subdomains or subfolders does not mean that there are no added advantages of using one over the other.

Or to paraphrase it:

Will Google penalize you if you host your website’s content on a subdomain? – Of course not.

But if instead, you placed that content on your main domain, could that content (along with its backlinks, if any) help your root domain rank higher and drive more traffic? – Definitely, yes.

Suppose your content and backlinks are divided between your main domain and a subdomain. In that case, both of these entities’ overall domain authority is going to be lower compared to if everything was placed on the main domain using subfolders instead.

This is the reason people commonly notice a boost in their overall organic search visibility as well as traffic inflow (in comparison to the two seen individually) when they shift relevant subdomains into subdirectories on the root domain.

You will come across heaps of success stories of site owners bagging substantial gains after migrating their content writing from a subdomain to a subdirectory on their main domain if you look around.

Twitter is a great platform to check out such stories as many people love sharing their experiences regularly over there.

Let us not forget the fact that all along we have been talking about shifting blog content from subdomains to subfolders. Now by default, those blogs are generally content-rich (typically, most businesses host their best content on their blog) and therefore it is quite common for that blog to earn backlinks. Therefore, here the subdomain has topical relevance as well as DA that is closely aligned to the primary domain.

Here, the subfolder is acquiring the relevance and authority (from content and backlinks) during the shift of content, if truth be told. When this inherited authority is joined with the primary domain’s existing authority, as a result, there is a boost in the site’s overall authority as well as organic search visibility which becomes larger than when the two were viewed as individual entities earlier.

Typically, good content that is scoring good backlinks will pretty much always promote improved SEO results when migrated from a subdomain to a subfolder.

SUBFOLDERS: THE CHALLENGES

In the perfect universe, you’d have complete control over whether to use subdomains or subfolders for different areas of your website.

Nevertheless, in reality, things are not often that straightforward and commonly, you will be required to make some compromises now and then depending on technical limitations including:

Inability to set up international websites in subdirectories

Developers not willing to host a blog on the same web server as an eCommerce store

A wish to have a dedicated blogging platform instead of an in-built blog of an eCommerce platform

Other features such as quote form not being able to be placed on the same server as the primary domain because of being written in different coding languages

These were just a few examples of the challenges or limitations you can face while deciding whether to use a subdomain or subdirectory in various areas of your website.

For example, Shopify pushes people to utilize subdomains for international stores (i.e. us.yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.com/us/), and here using subfolders is not a possibility, whatsoever the advantages may be.

Likewise, if you want to use a WordPress blog and your website runs on a content management system that does not support doing so on the same server (or provides you the access for the same). In that case, your developer will ideally recommend you to use a subdomain for comfort. However, sometimes it is possible to use a reverse proxy in this situation.

CONCLUSION: SUBDOMAIN OR SUBDIRECTORY – WHICH ONE IS RIGHT FOR ME?

Despite all this, one thing that can be said for sure is that a great deal of confusion still continues to surround this topic – whether or not subdomains can hurt your SEO efforts.

There are still lots of disagreements on whether Google regards these two any differently or not.

By and large, amid all these arguments, the SEO community does settle with hosting content in a subfolder instead of a subdomain provided that there are no technical limitations or legal restrictions in various countries.

Having said that, it is also crucial for you to take the context of this agreement into account and think about what you are considering to host on a subdomain.

If you are considering hosting an eCommerce store or blog, then you should always prefer to host this content on a subfolder.

However, if it is a quote form or content that is not probable to add any value to your website or contribute to its SEO results, from either topical relevance or authority viewpoint, do not just select subfolders by default.

Suppose you do find a reason to use a subdomain. In that case, you should never overlook it, and features such as quote forms and even support centers (typically behind the login screen) will not hurt the SEO potential of your website, if hosted on a subdomain instead of a subdirectory. If truth be told, you will most probably observe no difference using subfolders in these situations.

Most of the time, a subfolder is often preferred over a subdomain from an SEO point of view. But there are things that you need to consider prior to making any final decisions.

When it comes to hosting content like your blog, it is a relatively easy decision to make. But when it comes to hosting other types of content and site features, you need to think about several considerations and weigh the pros and cons of both the options as it isn’t an easy decision always.

Just make sure that you properly understand how and to what extent your decision can influence your website’s overall SEO performance. Be sure to bring these explanations to the table when discussing which road you should go down with developers and stakeholders.

Hariom Balhara is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for E Global Soft Solutions. E Global Soft Solutions is a Digital Marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC and Web Development company that comes with massive experiences. We specialize in digital marketing, Web Designing and development, graphic design, and a lot more.

SOURCE : Understanding Subdomain vs. Subdirectory: Which Is Best for SEO?

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Exceptional Web Site - Gta 5 Android Will Certainly Help You Arrive

Is the Telephone call of Duty mobile video game a copy of PUBG mobile video game?

best complimentary Android games offered now!

We assembled this checklist based upon the number of individuals downloaded and install video games from a certain style, and just how much they invest in each genre. There are a couple of even more honorary points out such as auto racing, FPS, RPG, sporting activities, etc. but none of those resembled beating out our top 5 categories in terms of player base or profits generation. And also indeed, we know that certain battle royale video games on mobile are "practically" first-person shooters. However there are essential differences between the battle royale style and FPS category, also if they utilize common auto mechanics. Fret not, we will describe what makes each style one-of-a-kind, as well as checklist a few important features for all 5 of our leading mobile game styles to assist you better determine new launches and also market trends.

Ubisoft revealed Tom Clancy's Elite Team, featuring prominent characters from significant Tom Clancy titles such as Rainbow 6 as well as Splinter Cell. Big game companies and also financiers are taking mobile gaming far more seriously than ever, as is evident from the boosting quality of graphics that are currently coming close to console levels of detail. The hyper-casual style is hypothesized to have reached a dew point yet will certainly not die down anytime quickly due to its nature- very easy to play, with brief session sizes and quick benefits.

NBA 2K Mobile

Can you play Call of Duty Mobile with a controller?

Minecraft is not dead, there are still a lot of players that play the game. However, the game is still very much alive.

Nonetheless, more recent titles such as Fortnite as well as EA's Pinnacle Legends surpassed and came PUBG with different interaction techniques. Fortnite, as an example, offers cross-platform gameplay and keeps on upgrading the video game frequently with new content. These are a few of the best features of Garena Free Fire Apk which are worth to state.

In fact, you can play on multiplayer web servers with people on those systems. There are in-app acquisitions, but they're normally just for modification things like skin packs. Throughout gameplay, you'll need to make choices about how your civilization will certainly develop to concentrate on the devices you'll need to get triumph while battling adversaries that aim to destroy you. You additionally can create calculated alliances with other leaders only to switch on them when the moment is best to turn the tides in your support. Human being, as constantly, is a technique video game at its core and would be finest suited for those who prepare to dive in headfirst and also take over the world.

Which mobile game earns the most money?

The this content recent data from Steam, the platform via which PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds (PUBG) is available for PCs, shows that the popular battle royale game has been losing the number of active players by a vast margin. EA is even considering bringing the game to mobile platforms by 2021.

The Most Popular Mobile Gamings Now.

Challenge games concentrate on easy to understand, yet difficult to master auto mechanics as well as need you to utilize logic as well as fast reasoning in order to beat the game. They are extremely simple on your fingers, so unlike shooters as well as racing video games, all you need to do in problem video games is faucet or swipe every so often. Easy in, easy out, that is the nature of collectible card games. You spend for premium decks and also quicker unlocks, but that is an alternative that you can select not to take and also just grind your means to the leading till you obtain a master tier deck.

Probably best of all is you can play a game in a reasonably brief quantity of time, making it wonderful for a quick video game while you get on the go. Garena Free Fire Apk is an utmost fight royale game offered on the Google Play Store. The game is for those that can not afford a capable mobile phone to run the likes of source hungry video games like PUBG Mobile as well as Fortnite.

Which offers ideal efficiency for pubg Android or iphone?

Is fortnite shutting down in 2020?

Yes, you can become a millionaire by making a free app provided that you have developed a really useful app and you have a kickass business mindset. Integrate your app with ads. If your app is used by millions by then, you will make million in matter of months.

German developer Andreas Illiger only ever launched one game for mobile, but what a game it is. You need to have come across 2011's Tiny Wings, a one-touch video game that saw you competing a small bird throughout procedurally produced islands to get as much as possible before nightfall. Do not worry to much regarding discovering contour due to the fact that the game assists you find out the ropes as you play, but you'll soon identify the best method to capture area and also go for the highest possible ratings. You can play alone against the AI or versus your close friends. Among the best things about the game is you can play a solitary gamer game in under thirty minutes.

It was a shock hit of very early 2019 and a very easy shoo-in for a listing such as this. We do suggest preparing ahead of time if you sell your phone and also require to backup your data. Diablo Immortal from Activision Blizzard obtained a lot of backlash from fans during its statement in 2015, yet you can bet there is a substantial market around for an action RPG mobile video game from Snowstorm. The Chinese are mosting likely to like it, and also it will certainly make Snowstorm tons of cash.

Even if one gamer in an event is having fun with a controller, the entire event will be matched against gamers using controllers. Screengrab using ActivisionMany players using a PS4 controller on a tool operating on Android 9 or 10 might deal with issues with functionality. Activision has guaranteed fans that it'll repair this issue in future updates.

Call of Obligation: Mobile

This gamer vs. gamer mobile game simplifies the timeless technique video game we've known for several years, making it into a kind of Clash Royale-like game. It harkens back to old build and also assault games, yet with the great feature of having the ability to plan against genuine individuals online.

The recent information from Steam, the platform using which PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds (PUBG) is readily available for PCs, shows that the preferred battle royale game has actually been losing the variety of energetic players by a large margin. As a matter of fact, contrasted to the days when PUBG was peaking at 1,584,886 on an average for energetic players back in January 2018, the existing numbers on Heavy steam for PUBG stand at 288,848. That's a substantial decrease in the variety of players and also it looks poor offered the circumstance is opposite for the mobile variation of the video game. The preferred fight Royale video game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, likewise known as PUBG, currently has just as lots of players as Fortnite at over 200 million users. According to The Brink, PUBG for Mobile currently has 200 million users and regarding 30 million energetic everyday customers.

There are additionally submarines that gamers have the ability to make use of to check out the depths of the Pacific Ocean. The Rhino from previous GTA titles has actually returned, including a brand-new complex intending system and also a realistic depiction of a container.

Wszystkie piosenki z odświeżonego GTA V - zobacz kogo usłyszysz.

Grand Theft Auto V for PC is offered for acquisition on Instantaneous Video gaming for a portion of its market price. You will certainly receive a main trick and have the ability to play the video game in secs. The video game is embeded in the imaginary community of San Andreas which is based loosely on common southern The golden state life. While much of the video game's scripted action happens in the city, the world is a lot bigger than previous GTA offerings, as well as gamers can check out openly.

This game is truly enjoyable, has many tasks alongside the main story as well as I recommend it to individuals that love single-player games. Grand Theft Auto V likewise comes with Grand Theft Auto Online, the ever-evolving and dynamic Grand Theft Auto cosmos with online bet up to 30 gamers, including all existing gameplay upgrades as well as material released because the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto V obtained "global acclaim" reviews on Metacritic obtaining a metascore of 96/100 on PC and 97/100 on PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, and also Xbox One. On whatoplay.com, it gets an aggregatee rating (playscore) of 8.62 on PC, 9.29 on PS3, 9.64 on Xbox 360, 9.32 on PS4, and also 8.99 on Xbox One.

Duration.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a third-person or first-person point of view. [b] Players complete goals-- direct situations with set purposes-- to proceed with the tale. Grand Theft Auto 5 is probably among the very best video games I've ever played. The story is cool and the online setting is extremely enjoyable as well as a really awesome experience.

Grand Theft Auto V broadens the multiplayer attribute that existed in Grand Theft Auto IV. The multiplayer is dealt with as an additional title and also is known as Grand Theft Auto Online. In GTA Online, multiplayer teams from Max Payne 3 can be rollovered to GTA V. GTA V has multiplayer functions linked to Superstar's Social Club. Grand Theft Auto V has more vehicles than in any kind of various other Grand Theft Auto game to day, with a selection of vehicles, consisting of planes, helicopters, automobiles, utility lorries, emergency situation solution lorries, motorcycles, and jet skis. Gamers are able to fly planes, which was a cut feature from Grand Theft Auto IV due to the limited dimension of the map, but the feature is now available in Grand Theft Auto V as a result of the much bigger, open globe map.

Grand Theft Auto V has the largest series of incredibly cars and trucks to day, as well as the most amount of cars, in the whole GTA collection. The Cheetah is among the few automobiles to show up most of GTA video games. New tasks have been added, such as yoga, triathlons, jet snowboarding, parachuting, golf, diving, and also tennis diving. Random events have likewise been added to the game and can appear anytime as the player explores around the map. The mobile phone has actually returned from Grand Theft Auto IV but is currently just used for calling the gamer's contacts, surfing the internet, and fast saving.

The video game Saints Row IV has a DLC pack of tools as well as clothes named GAT V, which is a recommendation to the initials of Grand Theft Auto V. The publisher, Deep Silver released it absolutely free on PC, mocking GTA V's absence from the system at the time. Players can ragdoll by pressing X/Square/SPACE (Xbox/PlayStation/PC) after that B/Circle/R (Xbox/Playstation/PC). Multiplayer holds up to sixteen individuals on Xbox 360 and also PlayStation 3, and thirty players on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC versions.

Playing as a protester.

Superstar Games, the video gaming business behind GTA V, did not promptly react to a request for comment. The Hong Kong demonstrations are being played out on Grand Theft Auto (GTA) V online.

The story is centred on the break-in series, and lots of missions include capturing as well as driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggressiveness of law enforcement feedback to gamers that dedicate criminal offenses. Grand Theft Auto Online, the video game's on the internet multiplayer mode, slows down to 30 gamers participate in a variety of various cooperative and competitive game modes. terrific video game can play it like everyday enjoyable to be able to have fun with pals and be able to download trendy mods and enjoy.

Download Grand Theft Auto V.

The game offered 11,210,000 duplicates and grossed $800,000,000 on its initial day of launch, establishing lots of documents, and also at some point making $1,000,000,000 within 3 days of the video game's release. The game is played from either a third-person or first-person perspective, and its world is browsed on foot or by automobile. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch among them, both during as well as outside goals.

The capturing technicians are better in regards to the feeling of the technicians as well as larger contrasted to the melee technicians in the video game, that being claimed, melee has been improved over the previous titles also. Rather than the old method of selecting via all the tools sequentially, there is currently a Weapon Wheel, which is similar to the one included in Red Dead Redemption, an additional video game made by Rockstar Games. Grand Theft Auto V attracts inspirations from various Rockstar titles in the past, including Max Payne 3, Twelve O'clock At Night Club, Manhunt, and Red Dead Redemption. As one of the most awaited video game titles to be released in 2013, the game was extensively anticipated prior to its launch. Grand Theft Auto V was released to global acclaim, holding scores of 96 and also above on MetaCritic and also GameRankings, in addition to receiving excellent ratings from over 30 reviewers.

Reviews.

Like all previous Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto V has courted conflict, though has been watched by some as considerably more questionable than its predecessors. Players can play as animals (enhanced variation), unlike in any various other Grand Theft Auto video game.

Discover all Vehicles, Motorbikes, Helicopters, Planes, Boats, and also all various other cars. See what are the fastest automobiles in GTA Online, one of the most costly, or the overall leading doing automobiles in GTA V. GTA V is the first game in the collection because Grand Theft Auto Development where the player can keep all the tools in their supply instead of replacing them. Grand Theft Auto V is the very first game in the franchise business to feature in-game subordinate songs (not counting cutscenes, credit scores as well as pause menus, as several earlier games had incidental music for these previously mentioned series).

Absolutely one of the best video games available today and also can not await the release of GTA 6. this video game has a low price for all the things that it provides, believe me, you won ´ t regreet acquiring it and pls tell a buddy to do it with you. In GTA 5 you can see the largest and also the most thorough globe ever before created by Rockstar Games. Also the opportunity to affect the life and also actions of three major personalities. This mix of several personalities background will certainly make the video game as fascinating and exciting as possible.

Hong Kong and mainland China gamers clash on GTA V.

Providing people the middle finger is an additional new function the gamer can utilize while in a lorry. Superstar advised that the gamer do this in numerous places around Los Santos to see the outcome; relying on where the gamer is at, they will obtain diverse responses from pedestrians. Grand Theft Auto V advances almost every auto mechanic that remained in the previous Grand Theft Auto games.

The Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 as well as Xbox One versions include one more 162 tracks to the in-game radio. The first-person sight is just offered in the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the video game. Teams win multiplayer matches to make experience factors as well as climb on the internet leaderboards.

Pojazdy w GTA V.

They launched its launching trailer one week later, with a main news release recognizing its setting. Journalists noted that the statement ignited extensive expectancy within the gaming market, which they owed to the cultural relevance of the collection. The game missed its initial predicted Q release day, pushed back to 17 September to allow for more polishing. To spur pre-order game sales, Superstar teamed up with several retail electrical outlets to make a special edition with additional in-game functions.

Re-release.

They ran a viral advertising strategy with an internet site for a fictional religious cult, "The Epsilon Program", that offered customers the chance to attribute in the video game as participants of the cult. The open globe was modelled on Southern California and Los Angeles, and also its style and also in-game provide made up a lot of the game's early work.

Video game.

Trick participants of the video game world manufacturing group took area study journeys throughout the area and also documented their research study with picture as well as video footage. Google Maps estimates of Los Angeles were used by the team to help style Los Santos' roadway networks. To duplicate and also reflect Los Angeles' group spread, the designers examined demographics data and watched docudramas regarding the city. The team thought about producing the open world the most practically demanding element of the game's production.

[julianlgvo171-blog]

Below's A 2 Minute Video That'll Make You Rethink Your Gta 5 Android Download Approach

Exactly how to play Call of Responsibility: Mobile using a controller

Garena Free Fire Download For Android.

Generally, the Fight of Polytopia is merely a terrific way to obtain your approach pc gaming fix on mobile. This turn-based method video game shares some similarities with World, yet streamlines the idea into a terrific mobile game. Choose from several different races with various strengths and also weaknesses and afterwards gradually take over the globe as you upgrade your modern technologies, unlock brand-new systems, and bring your opponents to their knees. The video game comes with a few races to pick from, but you can get more with in-app acquisitions.

Candy Crush Legend stick out as the only 2 applications to show up on both the top applications by downloads and also customer spend listings. Looking at the most downloaded and install apps of the decade, Facebook has actually dominated the mobile space representing the four most downloaded and install applications of the years with Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and also Instagram. Communication and social networks apps are customer favorites, accounting for 7 of the top 10 apps by downloads this years. In regards to Customer invest, video streaming and music apps were well stood for with Netflix, Pandora Music as well as Tencent Video clip all showing up in the top five.

Terraria has given that had numerous updates with many enhancements to the original core gameplay as well as the mobile version has all the same functions. If you're seeking a deep video game that you can truly obtain shed in on a tablet computer or iPad while on vacation or perhaps on a lengthy flight, Terraria is an exceptional option. Helix Dive by Voodoo is a responsive problem video game that's extremely misleading in its simpleness. The goal is to jump a round down a labyrinth by dropping purposefully via the fractures on each level without dropping on a red zone. You'll most definitely such as Iron Militaries if you like the design of tower protection the Kingdom Thrill collection does so well.

What is the best mobile game in the world?

PUBG mobile, Clash of Clans, Minecraft, Clash Royale, Fortnite, Pokémon Go, Candy Crush and Arena of Valor are some of the most popular mobile games right now.

The game also flaunts superb graphics, superb controls, hardware controller assistance, tons of material to play with, tons of cars to unlock, and also a selection of racing styles. The video game is a bit costly and also it's missing some smaller sized points competing fans often tend to like, yet it's otherwise one of the very best racing experiences in the Play Store.

Essentially, you are matched versus 99 other players in a large map with resources such as weapons, armor, ammo, and so on scattered in arbitrary places which you must gather in order to fend off your adversaries. The objective of the game is to be the last one standing, and it is partially motivated by the Japanese dystopian horror movie Fight Royale launched in 2000. In the flick, individuals are selected as well as sent out to a deserted island with food, maps, tools, and so on and also should kill each other to be the last one standing.

Nintendo Switch Pro Isn't Coming Along Xbox Series X as well as PS5.

It was a surprise hit of very early 2019 as well as an easy shoo-in for a checklist such as this. We do recommend preparing in advance if you trade in your phone as well as need to backup your data. Diablo Immortal from Activision Blizzard got a lot of backlash from followers throughout its announcement last year, but you can wager there is a huge market available for an action RPG mobile game from Snowstorm. The Chinese are mosting likely to love it, as well as it will certainly make Blizzard tons of cash.

A Recall on top Applications and Games of the Years.

Nonetheless, newer titles such as Fortnite and also EA's Apex Legends overtook as well as came PUBG with different engagement methods. Fortnite, for example, supplies cross-platform gameplay and keeps upgrading the game on a regular basis with new content. These are a few of the very best features of Garena Free Fire Apk which are worth to state.

That means that you can't run these video games on low-end smart devices. PUBG Mobile as well as Fortnite is a big pull down for everyone holding a 1GB RAM Mobile Phone. Not simply RAM, yet the video game additionally requires capable processor too. Although the game has been maximized well, still it requires a capable smart device to run.

Which is the No 1 game in the world in mobile?

PUBG has a larger world and more players than Free Fire. It also requires more time and patience to win. It also has a substantial collection of vehicles, unlike Free Fire. But to give credit where it's due, Free Fire has smoother gameplay and actually feels like a game.

Nintendo games.

Is free fire copied from PUBG?

No, Fortnite is not shutting down in 2020. Fortnite isn't shutting down in 2020 (be it June or later) thanks to the fact it continues to make more money than any other video game due to its format and collaborations with movies such as Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker.

As you increase with the rankings, you can gather a complying with, make use of drills to educate your gamers and also gain foil cards of much better players to improve your video game. PUBG MOBILE is conveniently one of the most effective games for mobile presently as well as with all the material updates coming one after the other, it seems it will certainly remain by doing this. Nevertheless, the same can not be said for the initial PC version that debuted long before the mobile version hit the application shops. If you take a look at the number of energetic players, it appears that PUBG on PC has actually shed virtually 82 per cent of its gamers contrasted to the days when the number came to a head at 15.8 lakhs. We will find that in the previous couple of years have been wonderful for the mobile gaming industry if we look back.

Ideal dating apps of 2020

There are also items to collect that can be sold for numerous modification options. They are easy, however effective as well as the dark, slope colors include a good ambience for the game. It's entirely totally free to play and download with some restricted ads. There are in-app purchases, but they recommend personalization stuff so it's entirely optional and it doesn't affect game play.

There are also submarines that players have the ability to use to discover the midsts of the Pacific Ocean. The Rhino from previous GTA titles has returned, consisting of a new complicated aiming system as well as a practical depiction of a tank.

Wszystkie piosenki z odświeżonego GTA V - zobacz kogo usłyszysz.

Grand Theft Auto V for COMPUTER is available for purchase on Instantaneous Pc gaming for a fraction of its market price. You will certainly obtain a main trick as well as have the ability to play the game in secs. The game is embeded in the imaginary community of San Andreas which is based loosely on generic southerly The golden state life. While much of the game's scripted action occurs in the city, the world is a lot larger than previous GTA offerings, and gamers can discover openly.

This game is really fun, has many activities along with the main tale and also I suggest it to individuals who enjoy single-player games. Grand Theft Auto V additionally includes Grand Theft Auto Online, the vibrant and ever-evolving Grand Theft Auto world with online play for as much as 30 gamers, consisting of all existing gameplay upgrades as well as content released because the launch of Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto V obtained "global acclaim" testimonials on Metacritic obtaining a metascore of 96/100 on PC as well as 97/100 on PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, as well as Xbox One. On whatoplay.com, it gets an aggregatee score (playscore) of 8.62 on PC, 9.29 on PS3, 9.64 on Xbox 360, 9.32 on PS4, as well as 8.99 on Xbox One.

Timeframe.

Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure video game played from either a third-person or first-person perspective. [b] Gamers total goals-- direct situations with established objectives-- to progress with the story. Grand Theft Auto 5 is possibly one of the very best games I've ever before played. The tale is great as well as the online mode is very enjoyable and a very great experience.

Grand Theft Auto V broadens the multiplayer feature that was present in Grand Theft Auto IV. The multiplayer is treated as an additional title and is called Grand Theft Auto Online. In GTA Online, multiplayer crews from Max Payne 3 can be rollovered to GTA V. GTA V has multiplayer features connected to Superstar's Social Club. Grand Theft Auto V has even more lorries than in any kind of other Grand Theft Auto video game to date, with a range of automobiles, consisting of aeroplanes, helicopters, cars and trucks, energy cars, emergency situation service vehicles, motorcycles, and also jet skis. Gamers have the ability to fly aircrafts, which was a cut attribute from Grand Theft Auto IV due to the minimal size of the map, however the feature is currently available in Grand Theft Auto V due to the much larger, open world map.

Grand Theft Auto V has the largest series of extremely autos to day, as well as one of the most amount of vehicles, in the whole GTA collection. The Cheetah is just one of the few automobiles to show up most of GTA games. New tasks have actually been added, such as yoga, triathlons, jet snowboarding, parachuting, diving, tennis, as well as golf diving. Random occasions have additionally been contributed to the game and also can show up anytime as the player discovers around the map. The smart phone has actually returned from Grand Theft Auto IV yet is now only utilized for calling the gamer's get in touches with, surfing the web, and also fast conserving.

The game Saints Row IV has a DLC pack of weapons as well as clothes named GAT V, which is a referral to the initials of Grand Theft Auto V. The publisher, Deep Silver released it free of cost on PC, buffooning GTA V's lack from the system at the time. Gamers can ragdoll by pressing X/Square/SPACE (Xbox/PlayStation/PC) then B/Circle/R (Xbox/Playstation/PC). Multiplayer holds up to sixteen people on Xbox 360 and also PlayStation 3, and also thirty gamers on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC variations.

The city depends on Blaine Area, near one more city, Los Santos (both additionally fictional) as well as all areas can be accessed from the beginning of the game. Embed in the most significant, most vibrant as well as most varied open globe ever developed, Grand Theft Auto V blends narration as well as gameplay in brand-new ways as players repetitively enter and also out of the lives of the game's 3 lead characters. Save by purchasing this package of Grand Theft Auto V and a Great White Shark Cash money Card worth $1,250,000 in-game to invest in GTA Online. GTA V is the 3rd video game in the collection to start with a bank robbery, with Grand Theft Auto III and The Ballad of Gay Tony being the second and first respectively. Unlike the previous 2 games, however, the bank break-in in GTA V is a playable mission as opposed to just a simple cutscene.

Particularly the last updates brought subdued vehicles and really pricey stuff in the video game. But altogether it's an extremely very good video game and a musthave for every gamer.

Superstar Gamings, the gaming firm behind GTA V, did not right away respond to an ask for comment. The Hong Kong demonstrations are being played out on Grand Theft Auto (GTA) V online.

The tale is centred on the heist series, and lots of missions involve capturing and driving gameplay. A "desired" system regulates the aggression of law enforcement feedback to gamers who devote crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the video game's on the internet multiplayer mode, slows down to 30 players take part in a variety of various cooperative and also affordable game modes. excellent video game can play it like every day enjoyable to be able to have fun with close friends and be able to download amazing mods and enjoy.

GTA V - project & online.

The video game offered 11,210,000 duplicates as well as made $800,000,000 on its first day of launch, setting many records, and also at some point making $1,000,000,000 within 3 days of the video game's launch. The game is played from either a third-person or first-person viewpoint, and also its globe is browsed on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and also button amongst them, both throughout and outside goals.

The capturing technicians are better in regards to the feeling of the auto mechanics as well as bigger compared to the melee auto mechanics in the video game, that being claimed, melee has actually been enhanced over the previous titles as well. Rather than the old means of selecting through all the tools sequentially, there is now a Tool Wheel, which resembles the one included in Red Dead Redemption, an additional video game made by Rockstar Games. Grand Theft Auto V attracts inspirations from various Superstar titles in the past, including Max Payne 3, Midnight Club, Manhunt, as well as Red Dead Redemption. As one of one of the most awaited computer game titles to be released in 2013, the video game was widely prepared for prior to its release. Grand Theft Auto V was launched to universal praise, holding ratings of 96 and above on MetaCritic as well as GameRankings, along with receiving excellent ratings from over 30 customers.

Like all previous Grand Theft Auto games, Grand Theft Auto V has actually courted conflict, though has been viewed by some as considerably more controversial than its predecessors. Gamers can play as pets (improved version), unlike in any kind of various other Grand Theft Auto game.

Explore all Vehicles, Motorcycles, Helicopters, Planes, Boats, as well as all various other cars. See what are the fastest lorries in GTA Online, one of the most costly, or the total leading performing lorries in GTA V. GTA V is the initial game in the collection considering that Grand Theft Auto Advance where the gamer can store all the weapons in their supply instead of changing them. Grand Theft Auto V is the very first game in the franchise business to feature in-game subordinate music (not counting cutscenes, credit ratings as well as pause menus, as several earlier video games had incidental music for these abovementioned series).

Definitely one of the very best games available right now as well as can not wait on the release of GTA 6. this video game has a small cost for all the things that it uses, believe me, you won ´ t regreet purchasing it and pls tell a friend to do it with you. In GTA 5 you can see the biggest as well as one of the most thorough world ever before produced by Superstar Games. Likewise the chance to influence the life as https://gta5apk.me well as actions of 3 main characters. This combination of numerous characters history will certainly make the game as fascinating and interesting as feasible.

Wszystkie piosenki z odświeżonego GTA V - zobacz kogo usłyszysz.

Providing individuals the middle finger is one more new feature the gamer can use while in an automobile. Superstar suggested that the gamer do this in various places around Los Santos to see the end result; relying on where the player is at, they will certainly obtain different responses from pedestrians. Grand Theft Auto V develops virtually every auto mechanic that was in the previous Grand Theft Auto games.

The Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and also Xbox One variations add an additional 162 tracks to the in-game radio. The first-person sight is only readily available in the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and also Xbox One variations of the game. Teams win multiplayer suits to earn experience factors and also climb on the internet leaderboards.

This violent videogame has made even more cash than any kind of movie ever.

. The video game includes a big variety of weapons, like the Norinco Kind 56-2 attack rifles with audio suppressors, installed flashlights, olive shabby polymer furniture, and also side-folding supplies. There is currently the alternative to place attachments onto various different weapons, every one affecting the efficiency. Melee weapons like the golf and the nightstick club that weren't existing in Grand Theft Auto IV have additionally been presented to Grand Theft Auto V. Like all previous video games, a large variety of vehicles spawn driving around the map that can be taken. Nearly a year later, the title continues to draw in new target markets on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with around the world sell-in currently going beyond 34 million devices.

Re-release.

The trademark video game from Superstar, among the biggest franchise business and for an excellent reason. The flexibility to play at your very own rate as well as without requirement to comply with the real missions in order to have fun. Grand theft auto v is a perfect video game there is so many things you can do. This is among the best video games available to play in my point of view, since it has actually been made, previously.

Więcej od: Superstar Gamings.

In 2017, consumers invested $36 billion on videogames, up 15% from the year previously, according to NPD Team information. Box office sales enhanced 3% around the world to a document overall of nearly $40 billion, though residential returns decreased as well as motivated questions concerning cinema chains and also film-production firms. Collect brand-new bounty targets in Grand Theft Auto Online to open the area of the Stone Hatchet.

GTA V - campaign & online.

Edge said that the licensed songs improved the city's "already remarkable sense of space" which the original score improved the environment of the gameplay. They summarised the video game as "a compendium of whatever Rockstar has actually discovered the power of game music in the past decade".

It was granted the title of A lot of Immersive Game at the Within Pc Gaming Awards. The general public elected the game to win the User Choice Honor at the PlayStation Honors 2013 and also the Area Choice honor from Destructoid. The video game received the Platinum Award at the PlayStation Honors as well as was named the Best British Game from BAFTA. At IGN's Finest of 2013 Honors, it gained multiple wins, including Best Xbox 360 Graphics, Ideal Xbox 360 Noise, and also Finest Action Game on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 as well as on the whole.

' Grand Theft Auto V' has actually brought in $6 billion, more than any kind of other single media title in history, and continues to sell.

A comparison of the PlayStation 4 (left) and PlayStation 3 (right) variations of the game. The improved re-release functions higher draw distances as well as higher-resolution appearances than the initial versions.

The tale is centred around the heist action and there are a lot of shooting and also driving situations to keep players involved as well as interested. Players make use of melee strikes, weapons and also surges to beat their opponents, and also can drive, swim, run and also jump to walk around the globe. Exploring the bigger world, you can even steal planes and also fly over the surface to reduce travel times. You can locate all of qualities from

[luwianskies]

Worldbuilding, A Confluence of Storms : The world of Asum

On a world who’s surface is 90% water and no continents, island clusters dot the blue of the oceans. On these islands live people, human and other, who must learn to share the limited space or die. And they all need to share the waters with the cephalopod-folk who command the blue realm.

(please ignore the terrible quality of this image...)

Consequences of the geography

What to say about Asum? Well, most of the ‘action’ in the story will be taking place on that cluster of islands in the lower right corner. That’s Aidorai (eye-door-eye), currently the most influential ‘nation’ on Asum. But, I’m going too fast, lets look a bit wider for now...

As we can see, not a lot of land to be had on Asum. This has direct consequences on the wildlife of the planet, most of which is either migratory or well-adapted to its home islands. Both flight and swimming are the most common travel forms, with only humans (and some species of arachnids) building ships for transportation. But by far the lifeform that has taken the most to travel and water is fungi. Some of the smaller islands are actually colonies of lots of kinds of fungus and slime molds working in concert to keep themselves together and attached to some island or rocks. Once they become too large, they break away from the islands and simply drift out to sea, releasing spores into the winds to breed as far as possible. Should they encounter land again, they might get a chance to grab on to new territory. This is undesirable to most islanders as they might disrupt the ecosystems of their islands, so most are diverted away from them. But not before they first explore these ‘floaters’ for potentially useful strains of fungus that could be repurposed in a controlled manner. Materials made by fungi is actually the Asumian equivalent to plastic, mouldable and in many cases strong and capable of floating. This makes it an ideal building material for ships and permanent buildings (few as they are). Imagine entire ships and buildings grown in one piece!

The other immediate consequence to the lack of land is that the weather can become monstrous in its power, with storms being true disasters no matter where they go or how small they start out as. Islands with tall mountains or volcanos are therefore prized as much-needed higher ground to escape the storms and tsunamis that hit the coasts, and hit them hard. During a storm, and by mutual agreement by all peoples, any and all ships are welcomed and their crews evacuated towards the mountains. Magic helps a great deal in protecting and transporting the ships themselves to somewhere relatively safe, but the people always get priority. This has essentially become a kind of universally recognized naval law, one where hospitality is a must, or have other people see you as untrustworthy and hurt your trading options (not to mention being denied the same courtesy when you need it...)

Also rare and precious on Asum is fresh water, and it can be viciously fought over by everybody except the Havisiai (have-ih-see-eye)more on these later). Fresh water is actually the most common source of conflict on Asum between human peoples, with everybody sending out ships to retrieve pieces of icebergs that float of towards the equator from the poles. Wars have been fought to settle claims over particularly large chunks and who gets to have them, and various kinds of magics have been invented to preserve them as intact as possible until they can be dragged to an island and broken up for distribution. Competitions over these being as fierce as they are, it has also motivated the creation of a great variety of ship shapes and sizes, as well as strategies to lay claim and gather the icebergs. Some choose lots of small and fast ships while others a few large and intimidating ones. They are as myriad as the people who make them. This may very well be considered Asum’s most popular ‘sport’, the testing of ships against each other...

The Peoples

I mentioned earlier the existence of many peoples, including non-human ones. Asum is an amazing world that has not one or two but four separate sapient species.

-Humans, no different from us save perhaps for much bigger lungs and the chests to go with them (for swimming and diving, holding the breath for longer), better night vision and the occasional partially webbed digits.

-The Havisiai: sapient cephalopods, with six tentacles, 3 genders and a visual-color language that is a pleasure to see even with no understanding. They are also very touchy-feely and have a tendency to taste people to get to know them, as well as having no sense of personal space or knowing when not to talk about any given person’s bodily processes (which they find fascinating and revealing about people). They are more solitary than humans but social enough to cooperate in hunting and building underwater shelters from predators. Their tool-use is rudimentary, but their mastery over water with magic makes them both formidable allies or enemies at sea and makes tool use rather superfluous. They call themselves ‘the Unseen Seers’ (a reference to their camouflage abilities), but are very flattered but the name the people of Aidorai have given them : ‘Havisiai’ means ‘Honored Beautiful People’ in Aidor.

-The Blue Sailors: These are sapient pterosaurs, nomadic/migratory and very chatty. As their name suggests, they are very blue, mostly stemming from their diet on a particular kind of clam that produces a blue pigment. Slightly larger than humans and Havisiai, they are in near-constant travel save for their breeding seasons which they spend on the same island cluster every year (on the map above, on the right above Aidorai, the smaller cluster). Although hey prefer cliffs, they can walk on flat ground perfectly fine on four limbs, and they manipulate objects with their feet and mouth while balancing on their wing-arms. They also have little us for tools but very much appreciate the ones humans give them, especially for grooming as it compliments their own magic-use well. They are very social and have connections between most of their families across the globe. Coordinating between them to avoid overcrowding small islands is a necessity, particularly when human populations are added to the equation. Their willingness to communicate means they can also be asked to send messages between humans, and ‘courier’ is their favorite outsourced job to humans. Their travels sometimes puts them in conflict with the final sapients of Asum....

-The ‘Dragons’ : These are not McCaffrey’ dragons. They do not breathe fire, though they do know how to start them. Nope, these are a kind of giant sharovipteryx, who speak in a combination of sign and whistle-and-clicks language and fly on four wings (their legs are their biggest wings). Communication with them on cordial terms is very recent for humans as they initially only paid attention to the sounds, but since then has improved greatly. They are the largest of the sapients and there aren’t that many of them. They occasionally clash with the Blue Sailors over space on the same island clusters, but since their breeding season is not the same as theirs, these are relatively minor. Unlike the Blue Sailors, who are blue because of their diet, the dragons have a limited chameleon-like ability to control their coloration with pigments in  their scales/skin. Some albinistic individuals lack this ability however, which makes them very visible during hunting and travel, and makes them vulnerable to solar radiation (sunburns and cancers because of it, ow!). The best way to get a dragon to like you is to offer one of the pink individuals some body-paint to cover themselves up with. They will love you all the more if you give it to them in a way where they can apply it to themselves without help. The most common is a water skin filled with paint and tipped at the opening with a sponge for easy smudging. Being that there aren't that many dragons, if you help one, others will hear about it and probably think well of you. No one is sure how capable they are with magic, but most stories about them depict them as very proficient. Only time will tell... 

Its gotten late now, so I’m gonna stop here and continue tomorrow with my favorite subject in the context of Asum : magic! and how it works! bwahahaha!

--luwianskies

[itbeatsbookmarks]

(Via: Hacker News)

Editor’s note: For this blog entry I welcome my friend and colleague Gerben Stavenga as a guest author.

Recently Andrei Alexandrescu published an interesting post about optimizing QuickSort using the Lomuto partition scheme. The essence of that post is that for many situations the performance of QuickSort is completely dominated by branch mispredicts and that a big speed up can be achieved by writing branchless code. This has been observed by many, and various branchless sorting routines have been proposed. Andrei observed that from the two well known QuickSort partitioning schemes Lomuto is easily implemented branchless, and this indeed performs much better for sorting small primitives. I recently experimented with similar ideas but took them in a different but interesting direction. I discovered that a hybrid of the Hoare and Lomuto schemes can deliver a large improvement even compared with branchless Lomuto. And the final surprise is that Bubble Sort takes the crown for small arrays. The key to all these wins is exploiting instruction-level parallelism and reducing dependency chains.

Basic QuickSort fundamentals

Quicksort refers to a class of algorithms for sorting an array that all share the same outline

void QuickSort(T* left, T* right) { if (right - left > kCutOff) { auto pivot = ChoosePivotElement(left, right); // Important but not focus here auto p = Partition(pivot, left, right); // The main work loop QuickSort(left, p); QuickSort(p, right); // Tail call, ideally the largest sub-interval } else { SortSmallArray(left, right); } }

Countless variations exist varying in the choice of kCutOff, choice of the sorting algorithm for the small arrays and choice of pivot element. These are important for performance but the main work QuickSort performs is done in the Partition function. There are two canonical schemes for implementing Partition: the original Hoare scheme and the Lomuto scheme. The Hoare partition scheme works by swapping elements that violate the partition property from the front of the array with elements from the back of the array, processing the array from the outside inwards converging on the partition point somewhere in the middle.

T* HoarePartition(T pivot, T* left, T* right) { while (left < right) { left = ScanForward(pivot, left, right); if (left == right) break; right = ScanBackward(pivot, left, right); if (left == right) break; swap(*left, *right); } return left; }

In contrast the Lomuto scheme processes the array from front to back, maintaining a properly partitioned array for the elements processed so far at each step.

T* LomutoPartition(T pivot, T* left, T* right) { T* p = left; for (auto it = left; it < right; it++) { if (*it < pivot) { std::swap(*it, *p); // Could be a self-swap p++; } } return p; }

A remarkably simple loop, with an additional property that it’s stable with respect to the ordering of the elements smaller than the pivot. It’s easy to see that the above loop can be implemented without conditional branches. The conditional swapping can be implemented by conditional moves and the conditional pointer increase could be implemented as a unconditional p += (*it < pivot). Andrei’s blog shows the performance gain of this simple branchless loop over production quality implementations in various standard libraries.

Performance analysis of branchless Lomuto partitioning

Here I want to take the optimizations further and dive deeper into the performance analysis of sorting algorithms. When conditional branching is removed the performance of code tends to become much more stable and easier to understand, data dependencies become key. We are going to analyse the code in terms of a self explanatory pseudo-assembly code, where named variables should be thought of as CPU registers and loads/stores to memory are made explicit. In this notation the basic loop above becomes

loop: val = Load(it) // 1 prev_val = Load(p) // 2 is_smaller = val < pivot // 3 valnew = cmov(is_smaller, prev_val, val) // 4 prev_val = cmov(is_smaller, val, prev_val) // 5 Store(it, valnew) // 6 Store(p, prev_val) // 7 p += is_smaller // 8 it++ // 9 if (it < right) goto loop

How would it run on a parallel out-of order CPU? As a first approximation we can pretend that the CPU is arbitrarily parallel, ie. it can execute unlimited instructions in parallel as long as the instructions are independent. What is important to understand is the loop carried dependency chains. They determine the minimum latency a loop could possibly run. In the above code you see that the dependency between iterations of the loop are carried by it and p. Only line 8 and 9 participate on the loop carried chain and both are single cycle instructions. So we determine that the loop could potentially run at a throughput of 1 cycle per iteration.

However this dependency analysis is not quite correct. There are also loads and stores to memory. If you store something to a certain memory address and later load from that address you must read the value of the previous store. That means loads have dependencies on stores, or at least if the address overlaps. Here it and p are dynamic values and for sure they can overlap, depicted by the dashed lines in the diagram above. So let’s add the fact that there is a dependency between the loads at line 1 and 2 on the stores of line 6 and 7.

This completely changes the game, now there is a long loop carried data dependency, lines 6 and 7 depend on lines 4 and 5, which both depend on line 3 , which depend on the loads at lines 1 and 2, which potentially depend on the stores at lines 6 and 7 of the previous iteration. If we count the cycles, we get 5 cycles for the loads (loads itself can be done in parallel), 1 cycle for the comparison, 1 cycle for the conditional move and 1 cycle for the store, hence this loop will run ~8 cycles. A far cry from the 1 cycle iterations our cursory discussion indicated.

Although it’s not possible to reorder stores and loads in general it’s essential for performance of a CPU to do so. Let’s take a simple memcpy loop

loop: val = Load(it) Store(it + delta, val) it++ if (it < end) goto loop

If the load cannot be reordered with the previous store, this is a 5 + 1 = 6 cycle latency loop. However in memcpy it’s guaranteed that loads and stores never overlap. If the CPU would instead reorder, the above loop would execute with a throughput of one iteration per cycle. It’s execution would look like, ignoring the instructions needed for control flow.

val_0 = Load(it_0); it_1 = it_0 + 1; // Cycle 1 val_1 = Load(it_1); it_2 = it_1 + 1; // Cycle 2 val_2 = Load(it_2); it_3 = it_2 + 1; // Cycle 3 val_3 = Load(it_3); it_4 = it_3 + 1; // Cycle 4 // The value of the load at cycle 1 becomes available. // From this point all instructions of the loop are executed each cycle. val_4 = Load(it_4); it_5 = it_4 + 1; Store(val_0); // Cycle 5 val_5 = Load(it_5); it_6 = it_5 + 1; Store(val_1); // Cycle 6

In practice most of the stores preceding a load in the instruction stream are in fact to different addresses and it is possible to reorder loads in front of stores. Therefore CPU’s do reorder loads in front of stores, which is called speculative loading, however the effects of the load are only committed when it’s verified no store has invalidated the speculative load. If a preceding store, in effect, invalidates the load, execution is rolled back to the load and the CPU starts over. One can imagine that this is very costly and very akin to branch mispredicts. While a lot of stores and loads are to different addresses, there are also plenty of stores and loads to the same address, think about register spills for example. Therefore the CPU uses a prediction model based on instruction address to determine if a load has a dependency on previous stores. In general the CPU is pretty conservative, the cost of a wrong reordering is very high. In the code above the CPU will encounter loads from the same address as recent stores and will be hesitant to do the necessary re-ordering.

Revisiting the Lomuto partition scheme

Looking closer it’s the load from p that is problematic. The load from it is in fact always from a different address than the previous stores. Furthermore the load at p is also responsible for a lot of extra work in the loop. It is necessary as otherwise the store at p will corrupt values in the array. The values that are overwritten are values previously encountered in the scan and are those elements that are larger than the pivot. If instead we would save these values in a temporary buffer there is no need to swap.

// Distributes the elements [left, right) into begin of left and from end of // scratch buffer T* DistributeForward(T pivot, T* left, T* right, T* scratch) { auto scratch_end = scratch + kScratchSize - 1; ptrdiff_t offset = 0; for (auto it = left; it < right; it++) { auto val = *it; bool is_larger = val >= pivot; auto dst = is_larger ? scratch_end : it; dst[offset] = val; offset -= is_larger; } return right + offset; } T* ModifiedLomutoPartition(T pivot, T* left, T* right, T* scratch) { auto p = DistributeForward(pivot, left, right, scratch); // To complete the partition we need to copy the elements in scratch // to the end of the array. auto size = right - p; memcpy(p, scratch + kScratchSize - size, size * sizeof(T)); return p; }

This is a much simpler loop, only one load and one store per iteration. More importantly the load will never clash with a previous store. This loop runs much faster than the original loop, it’s not 1 cycle per iteration but 2.5 cycles on my machine. This is indicative that it’s saturating the ILP of the CPU. Unfortunately the above code is not in-place anymore, it requires O(n) additional memory for the scratch buffer.

The elegant hybrid

If instead we use a smallish fixed size temporary buffer, we can still use the above code except we need to abort when the fixed buffer is full. What do we do then? The function returned the partition point p where it left the loop. At this point [left, p) have the correct elements smaller than pivot at the front of the array. The scratch buffer is full with elements larger or equal to pivot and [p, p + kScratchSize) contains information we don’t need anymore. The idea is that we can do the same algorithm but backwards, we can use [p, p + kScratchSize) as a temporary buffer. Notice how DistributeForward() fills the scratch buffer from back to front; the backwards version would fill the scratch from front to back. So performing DistributeBackwards() using the interval [p, p + kScratchSize) as scratch will neatly pack all smaller elements encountered to the correct place. This continues until the scratch space is full, but now a new scratch space at the end of the array opened up. Wait, this looks like Hoare’s algorithm but hybridized with the Lomuto-inspired distribute function.

T* ModifiedHoarePartition(T pivot, T* left, T* right, T* scratch) { auto pleft = DistributeForward(left, right, pivot, scratch); if (right - pleft <= kScratchSize) { auto size = right - pleft; std::memcpy(pleft, scratch + kScratchSize - size, size * sizeof(T)); return pleft; } left = pleft + kScratchSize; T* res; while (true) { right = DistributeBackward(left, right, pivot, left - kScratchSize) - kScratchSize; if (right <= left) { res = right; break; } left = DistributeForward(left, right, pivot, right) + kScratchSize; if (right <= left) { res = left - kScratchSize; break; } } std::memcpy(res, scratch, kScratchSize * sizeof(T)); return res; }

What we are ending up with is an in-place algorithm that’s almost branchfree. The precise number of iterations in the modified Lomuto partitioning scheme depend on the outcome of the comparisons and will be difficult to predict exactly right. However the loop is guaranteed to iterate at least kScratchSize times. This basically amortises the cost of branch mispredictions over many elements making them irrelevant for performance. I consider this to be a truly elegant design.

Fallback for sorting short arrays

The next step is the fallback for short arrays where the overhead of recursion starts dominating. In the literature insertion sort is most often recommended together with countless micro-optimizations applied. I found that at this point partitioning was so fast that QuickSort beat insertion sort all the way down to just a few elements. The problem is that insertion sort has unpredictable branches, basically 1 miss per insert. The solution is Bubble sort. Bubble sort has a very predictable access pattern and the swap can be implemented branchless. A little more optimizing you discover you don’t need a swap. One can keep the maximum in register and store the minimum.

void BubbleSort(T* arr, size_t n) { for (size_t i = n; i > 1; i--) { auto max = arr[0]; for (size_t j = 1; j < i; j++) { auto y = arr[j]; arr[j - 1] = (max <= y ? max : y); max = (max <= y ? y : max); } arr[i - 1] = max; } }

In the above inner-loop max is the variable that participates on the longest loop carried data chain, with a compare and conditional move on it. This makes the above loop execute in 2 cycles per iteration. However we can do better. If instead of bubbling the max, we’re bubbling up the two largest elements we only need to iterate the bubbling stage ++n/2++ times, instead of ++n++ times. It turns out that using a clever implementation one can bubble two elements in the same 2 cycles.

void BubbleSort2(T* arr, size_t n) { for (size_t i = n; i > 1; i -= 2) { auto x = arr[0]; auto y = arr[1]; if (y < x) std::swap(x, y); for (size_t j = 2; j < i; j++) { auto z = arr[j]; bool is_smaller = y <= z; auto w = is_smaller ? y : z; y = is_smaller ? z : y; is_smaller = x <= z arr[j - 2] = (is_smaller ? x : z); x = is_smaller ? w : x; } arr[i - 2] = x; arr[i - 1] = y; } }

The benchmarks verify that indeed this makes a difference.

BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort>/2 2 ns 2 ns 400700000 BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort>/8 5 ns 5 ns 155200000 BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort>/32 14 ns 14 ns 52600000 BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort2>/2 1 ns 1 ns 514500000 BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort2>/8 3 ns 3 ns 256700000 BM_SmallSort<exp_gerbens::BubbleSort2>/32 9 ns 9 ns 78400000 BM_SmallSort<InsertionSort>/2 4 ns 4 ns 183600000 BM_SmallSort<InsertionSort>/8 11 ns 11 ns 63500000 BM_SmallSort<InsertionSort>/32 17 ns 17 ns 42000000

In fact it’s possible to generalize this, one can bubble up the top ++N++ in constant cycles per iteration in the model where the CPU has arbitrary ILP.

Bringing it all together

What are the results? The results are nothing short of spectacular. The following is a simple benchmark on sorting 100000 int’s. The time is normalized by the number of elements, so it’s the amount of time spent per element. I’m using clang + libc++ here, as gcc is dramatically worse in emitting branch free code.

CPU: Intel Skylake Xeon with HyperThreading (36 cores) dL1:32KB dL2:1024KB dL3:24MB Benchmark Time(ns) CPU(ns) Iterations ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BM_Sort<std_sort> 51.6 51.6 10000000 BM_Sort<std_stable_sort> 65.6 65.6 10000000 BM_Sort<lib_qsort> 90.4 90.5 7800000 BM_Sort<andrei_sort> 32.6 32.6 21500000 BM_Sort<exp_gerbens::QuickSort> 16.4 16.4 43200000

We’re talking about a 2x win over Andrei’s implementation as copied from his github. The code is available at my GitHub, although it doesn’t contain benchmarks for the code as published by Andrei as it didn’t contain a license.

We’ve seen how crucial it is to understand data dependencies in order to optimize code. Especially hidden memory dependencies between load and stores can greatly influence performance of work loops. Understanding the data dependency graph of code is often where the real performance gains lie, yet very little attention is given to it in the blogosphere. I’ve read many articles about the impact of branch mispredictions, importance of data locality and caches, but much less about data dependencies. I bet that a question like “why are linked lists slow?” is answered by many in terms of locality, caches or unpredictable random memory access. At least I’ve heard those reasons often, even Stroustrup says as much. Those reasons can play a part, but it’s not the main reason. Fundamentally iterating a linked list has a load-to-use on the critical path, making it 5 times slower than iterating a flat array. Furthermore accessing flat arrays allow loop unrolling which can further improve ILP.

Why is QuickSort fast compared to merge and heap sort?

This brings us to answer why QuickSort is fast compared to other sorts with good or even better theoretical complexity. It’s all about data dependencies. The quick sort partition loop above demonstrates a distinctive feature. The element it will process next does not depend on the outcome of the comparisons in previous iterations. Compare this to merge sort. In merge sort the two head elements are compared, however the next elements that need to be compared depend on the outcome of this comparison. It’s trivial to implement merge sort branch free. It will look like

val1 = Load(left + k - right_idx) // 1 val2 = Load(right + right_idx) is_smaller = val2 < val1 // 2 tmp = cmov(is_smaller, val2, val1) Store(out + k, tmp); k++; right_idx += is_smaller // 3

This is about 8 cycles per iteration to update right_idx, we have a load and non-trivial indexing at line 1 (6 cycles), and line 2 and 3 both being 1 cycle. Similar analysis holds for heap sort, restoring the heap property requires comparing the two children and recurse on the subtree of the biggest child.

left = Load(2 * idx) right = Load(2 * idx + 1) is_smaller = left < right tmp = cmov(is_smaller, right, left) Store(idx, tmp); idx = 2 * idx + is_smaller

Again this is 8 cycles on the loop carried data chain. This goes to the heart of the matter of why QuickSort is fast even though theoretically it has inferior behavior compared to heap and merge sort. By construction heap and merge sort divide the data very evenly in the implied tree structure, the heap structure is a binary tree of minimum depth as is the recursive subdivision that merge sort performs. This means that the number of comparisons they do is ++n \lg(n)++ which tightly hugs the information theoretical lower bound of ++\lg(n!)++.

In contrast, QuickSort bets on obtaining a reasonably balanced tree with high probability. The bits of information extracted from a comparison with the pivot depends on its rank in the array. Only pivots that are close to the median will result in obtaining 1 bit of information per comparison. Solving the recurrence equation of QuickSort with a uniform pivot choice, gives ++2n \ln{n}++ as the number of comparisons on average. Hence QuickSort does a factor ++2 \ln(2) = 1.4++ more comparisons than heap sort or merge sort on average, or equivalently more iterations in the inner work loop. However the enormous speed difference in the basic work loop more than compensates for this information theoretical factor.

Also, when partitioning big arrays spending a little amount of work improving the choice of pivot by a median of three brings this factor down to ~1.2. Further improvements can get this factor rather close to 1. The main point here is that this factor is dominated by the differences in throughput of the work loop.

We can significantly speed up merge sort with a simple trick. Due to the large dependency chain, merge sort loop runs at a very low IPC. This basically means we can add more instructions for free. In particular merge sort has a backwards equivalent. We can merge forward and backward in a single loop while keeping the latency of the loop body the same. It also eliminates an awkward exit condition as now you can unconditionally iterate n/2 times. This reduces the number of iterations roughly by 2x.

BM_Sort<exp_gerbens::QuickSort> 10.7 10.7 65011712 BM_MergeSort<MergeSort> 23.4 23.4 29884416 BM_MergeSort<MergeSortDouble> 13.2 13.2 52756480

Another trick is preloading values for the next iteration,

next_val1 = Load(left + k - right_idx + 1) next_val2 = Load(right + right_idx + 1) is_smaller = val2 < val1 tmp = cmov(is_smaller, val2, val1) val1 = cmov(is_smaller, val1, next_val1) val2 = cmov(is_smaller, next_val2, val2) Store(out + k, tmp); k++; right_idx += is_smaller

You see that in a single iteration the increase of right_idx does not depend on a load as val1 and val2 are already available at the start of the iteration. Over two iterations one can see that right_idx depends on itself. This chain is ~8 cycles long but spread over 2 iterations which gives a throughput of ~4 cycles per iteration. Combining these two tricks could lead to merge sort on par with the simple partition loop of QuickSort. However it’s just a mitigation. If instead of sorting a simple primitive value we would sort pointers to a struct. The comparison operator would have an extra load which immediately adds to the critical path. QuickSort is immune to this, even rather costly comparisons do not influence the ability to make progress. Of course if the comparison itself suffers from frequent branch misses, then that will limit the ability to overlap different stages of the iteration in the CPU pipeline.

A lot of thanks to Josh for discussions, helpful suggestions, his insights and for providing space on his blog for this post.

[katebushwick]

How do people maintain deeply held moral identities in a seemingly immoral social environment? Cultural sociologists and social psychol- ogists have focused on how individuals cope with contexts that make acting on moral motivations difficult by building supportive networks and embedding themselves in communities of like-minded people. In this article, however, the author argues that actors can achieve a moral “sense of one’s place” through a habitus that leverages the material di- mensions of place itself. In particular, he shows how one community of radical environmental activists make affirming moral identities cen- tered on living “naturally” seem like “second nature,” even in a seem- ingly unnatural and immoral urban environment, by reconfiguring their physical world. The author shows how nonhuman objects serve as proofs of moral labor, markers of moral boundaries, and reminders of moral values, playing both a facilitating and constraining role in moral life.

INTRODUCTION

How do people for whom living “morally” is a key part of their identity le- verage the apparent moral challenges posed by their environment to sus- tain a sense of moral selfhood? The relationship between moral values, action, and social context is a long-standing area of inquiry for social psychologists ðsee Blasi 1980; Hardy and Carlo 2005; Lizardo and Strand 2010Þ, but it also bears heavily on a range of sociological analyses. Members of impoverished inner-city minorities Duneier 1999; Anderson 2003; Liebow 2003 or the work- ing classðLamont 2000; Sayer 2005Þ frequently confront the low status af- forded to them by society by asserting their moral worth. Employees in non- profit hospitals or hospices must balance a commitment to health care as a social right with pressure to economize on or limit treatment ðLivne 2014; Reich 2014Þ. Political activists, too, must weigh wanting to change the world with living in a social milieu where most do not share their worldviews. This article shows how such actors may make living morally seem like “second nature” by drawing on the material world.2 I approach morality as a set of individual or collective beliefs that spec- ify the kinds of persons or actions that are “good” or “right” evalua- tions that apply to actors across different situations and over time ðTavory 2011, p. 273Þ. This definition sets up the central problematic of this article: how actors, in the face of situations that appear to make living up to the range of their motivations to act morally difficult, nonetheless achieve a sense that maintaining a moral identity is a habitual, relatively unproblem- atic, and sustainable second nature. A long line of thinking within cultural sociology, frequently drawing on Durkheim has focused on how an indi- vidual sense of living morally is facilitated by group life.4 This article argues, however, that the material characteristics of place can provide resources for sustaining a sense of moral selfhood. In particular, I show how nonhuman objects can serve as proofs of the substance and significance of moral labor, markers of boundaries that distinguish moral actors from those they per- ceive as less moral, and totemic reminders of moral commitments. At the same time, these material proofs, reminders, and markers add a dimension of unpredictability to moral life that actors must manage see Latour 2005. In short, I argue that one way individuals can achieve what Bourdieu ð1990, p. 295Þ might call a moral “sense of one’s place”—a degree of comfort with the possibilities and limits of living up to a moral identity but that nonethe- less allows for the ongoing development of a moral identity through the crea- tion of new moral practices—is through a habitus that constructs and is con- structed in dialogue with material objects. I develop this argument through an ethnographic study of the moral lives of “freegans” in New York City. Freeganism is a small emerging movement within radical environmentalism in the United States and Western Europe whose participants attempt to dramatize the unsustainability and excesses of mass consumerism by claiming to minimize their participation in the cap- italist economy and living off its waste ðEdwards and Mercer 2007; Gross 2009Þ. Freegans are best known for publicly “dumpster diving” and redis- tributing discarded but edible food from supermarkets, but freegan practices also include gardening in abandoned lots; creating and repairing bicycles, clothing, or furniture from discarded materials; foraging for wild food in ur- ban parks; and limiting paid employment in favor of full-time activism. Freegans are ideologically heterogeneous: some describe themselves as anarchists while others evince a more reformist critique of capitalism’s ex- cesses. Nonetheless, nearly all frame their activism as centered on a deep, moral motivation to live more “naturally.” Jeff, a tall, muscular white free- gan in his mid-20s with a degree in filmmaking, explained: “My vision is that eventually we live in a world where we don’t have any of this modern tech- nology. Live with the land, on the land, and everything we get comes from nature. Civilization is fundamentally, inherently crazy and unsustainable, and eventually it exhausts itself. I think we can be mature, responsible beings, but still be wild animals. That’s what other animals on the planet do, why should we be any different?” Jeff’s description of freeganism harkened to the “back- to-the-land” communalism that flourished in the 1960s, except in one obvious respect: Jeff, and the other freegans studied in this article, all live in New York City. In fact, Jeff continued to work at a job he said he loathed in order to make monthly rent payments to a landlord he claimed was exploitative, so he could live in a city he characterized as a “black hole sucking up the re- sources of the planet.” Yet the apparently problematic human environment of the city was none- theless necessary for freegans’ practices, such as publicly displaying and politi- cizing wasted food. What is more, I argue that the very adversity of the city, when combined with the physical resources the freegans made out of their environment, allowed freegans to carve out a sense of moral place in the city. For all his rhetoric, there was an evident comfort and familiarity in the way Jeff navigated the streets of Brooklyn on the bike he built from abandoned parts, combed the curb looking for useful waste, and cultivated a garden amid slabs of broken concrete behind a local community center. Jeff’s everyday habitus belied this discursive clash between the ideals of living “naturally” Making the City Second Nature 1019 American Journal of Sociology and the reality of life in a city. In fact, living naturally in the city seemed like second nature thanks to one of the city’s apparently most problematic fea- tures: waste. I begin this article with a review of recent literature on morality, which has emphasized interaction and group life as sustaining moral identities and motivating moral action. I then reconsider Durkheim’s later work on to- temism and Bourdieu’s work on practical action, supported by more recent work in cultural sociology, to reemphasize the role of the material world in moral life. I theorize how nonhumans can serve as proofs of moral labor, markers of moral boundaries, and reminders of moral values. I then explore freegans’ contradictory relationship to urban life, showing how freegans make living naturally central to their identities yet live in a city that appears to make doing so difficult. I then demonstrate how freegans invert the seeming “prob- lems” posed by the city, turning it into a place in which morality can seem second nature, through engagement with the physical world. Nonhuman proofs, markers, and reminders are not just props or conduits for the con- struction of moral selves, but active players that both enable and constrain moral action, findings I reflect on in the conclusion. THE MATERIALITY OF MORALITY Moral Identities, Motivations, and the Habitus Theories of the relationship between moral values, moral action, and social context have undergone several paradigm shifts within post-Parsonian so- ciology ðsee Lizardo and Strand 2010Þ. “Tool kit theorists” recognize the frequent divergence between what people say and do and thus reject the notion that a coherent moral worldview shapes action ðSwidler 1986, 2001; DiMaggio 1997Þ. Instead, individual action is patterned by an external scaf- folding of cultural codes, roles, and institutions from which individuals draw in a situational, ad hoc fashion. This approach to the relationship between values and actions presents “morality” as, foremost, justifications for actions undertaken for potentially nonmoral reasons ðLamont 1992, 2000; Boltanski and Thévenot 2006Þ. From the perspective of tool kit theory, asking how individuals act in ways they see as “moral” in social contexts that make doing so difficult does not really make sense. If “moral responsibilities are not fixed, but are im- provised” ðSanghera, Ablezova, and Botoeva 2011, p. 169; see also Brown 2009; Turowetz and Maynard 2010Þ, the problem becomes one of situational impression management rather than bringing action into accordance with some inner moral “core” ðsee Goffman 1959Þ. Actors might need to expli- cate gaps between beliefs and actions but feel little need to close those gaps themselves in the name of some stable moral sense of self. 1020 More recent work within social psychology and sociology, however, has asserted a more systematic relationship between moral beliefs and actions. As Vaisey ð2009Þ argues, deeply internalized, but not necessarily verbalized, moral worldviews may “motivate” action across time and across social con- texts. From this perspective, the “problem” of maintaining a moral sense of self becomes more comprehensible: actors carry relatively constant moral motivations but confront environments that vary in the degree to which they facilitate acting on them. Even if individuals can live with contradictory moral commitments, struggle to articulate what those commitments are, and hold them alongside nonmoral desires, the ability to act on moral beliefs can none- theless be an important source of personal “ontological security” ðGiddens 2009, p. 50Þ. While these two visions of moral action appear incompatible, social psy- chologists have partly bridged them by suggesting that the relationship be- tween moral norms and action may depend on “moral identities” ðBlasi 1980; Monroe 2001; Hardy and Carlo 2005; Reynolds and Ceranic 2007Þ. Nearly everyone sees himself or herself as a “moral” person and thus feels some need to account for his or her actions in terms of shared moral codes. At the same time, the degree to which acting morally is central to the conception of the self—and, as such, plays a motivating role—is variable ðMonroe 2001; Aquino et al. 2009; Stets and Carter 2012Þ. Disparities between motivations and ac- tions might be primarily a concern for individuals with a high degree of moral identity—such as, I will show, the freegans—for whom not being able to act morally is injurious to the sense of self ðBurke and Stets 2009, pp. 69, 80Þ. How do individuals with a high level of moral identity interact with the world around them in practice? Vaisey ð2009Þ observes that to constantly reevaluate one’s lifestyle vis-à-vis moral values would be “cognitively over- whelming.” Instead, as ethnographers in the Bourdieusian tradition have ar- gued, becoming a “moral” actor with a “moral” identity entails the devel- opment of a “moral habitus,” a “thoroughly embodied and practical form of moral subjectivity” ðWinchester 2008, p. 1755; see also Ignatow 2009; Abramson and Modzelewski 2011Þ. This moral habitus is more deliber- ately cultivated and less deeply ingrained than the primary habitus but none- theless serves as a powerful subjective and behavioral force ðWacquant 2014, p. 6Þ. Although Bourdieu himself was skeptical that moral norms were the basis for action ðfor a critique, see Sayer 1⁄22005Þ, this extension of habitus captures important points that have appeared elsewhere in the sociological literature on morality. Moral beliefs and identities are not just prior to moral action but are constructed in a dialectical fashion through action, creating a sense of one’s moral place relative to the surrounding social structure ðWinchester 2008, p. 1755Þ. Moral assumptions and beliefs are often intuitive and embod- Making the City Second Nature 1021 American Journal of Sociology ied rather than discursively articulated ðSayer 2005, pp. 42– 43; Abend 2014, pp. 30, 55Þ. And even as morality can constrain individual action, it can be generative of new practices ðJoas 2000, pp. 14, 66Þ. When the everyday moral habitus and the actor’s position in social space are aligned, actors are like a “fish in water” that “does not feel the weight of the water, and takes the world about itself for granted” ðWacquant and Bourdieu 1992, p. 127Þ. In such situations, following the motivating im- pulses of one’s moral identity becomes “second nature,” something “experi- enced as non-problematic—expected, understood, 1⁄2and navigable” ðMartin 2000, p. 197Þ. This happens not just through occasional situations when actors can make themselves feel they are “moral enough” but through the ongoing dialectic of everyday habitus and social environment. Group Life and a Moral Sense of Place Bourdieu’s ð1984, 1990; Wacquant and Bourdieu 1992Þ work usually em- phasized the homology between the mental structures of the habitus and the “rules of the game” in the surrounding field. Nonetheless, it is clear that the specific moral habitus and the avenues of action open to it are not always congruent ðSayer 2005, pp. 26, 44Þ. To be a committed Muslim in a Chris- tian country or an animal rights activist at an event catered for meat eaters entails adjustments to a pure enactment of moral motivations. What is the consequence of these situations? Bourdieu suggested that one result could be “hysteresis”—a habitus ill adapted to action in a particular social environ- ment ðBourdieu 1990, p. 62; Lizardo and Strand 2010, p. 221Þ.5 But while Bourdieu is often read as describing a habitus that stems from and thus reproduces the outside world ðsee Sallaz and Zavisca 2007, p. 25; Wacquant 2014, p. 5Þ, Bourdieu ð1990, p. 61Þ himself points out that the social world and the habitus are constructed together. Agents can generate contexts in which, even as a fish out of water in the wider society, their moral habitus can align with its social milieu. For example, Vaisey and Lizardo ð2010Þ show how actors “prune” their social networks to increase interac- tions with others who share their moral worldviews.6 Participants in de- viant communities, for example, often differentiate themselves on the basis of moral criteria of personal or collective worth, which almost by definition put them “out of place” in society ðBecker 1963; Goffman 1963; Moon 2012Þ. Subcultural participants can sustain their opposition to conventional norms partly through group life, which provides “free spaces” and rituals that re- inforce identities and motivations and create contexts for acting on them 5 This is similar to “identity theorists’ ” suggestion that an “unverifiable” identity is liable to be replaced ðBurke and Stets 2009, p. 80Þ: frustrated freegans, e.g., reverting to their identity as middle-class urban denizens or more moderate political agents. 6 Identity theory, as cited above, makes a similar point about how actors search out sit- uations in which salient identities are likely to be confirmed ðBurke and Stets 2009, p. 73Þ. 1022 ðFischer 1975; Fine and Kleinman 1979Þ.7 Recent work has more explicitly argued that the appeal of subcultures stems from simultaneous development of an individual moral habitus and the structures, rules, and rituals of devi- ant group life ðWacquant 2004; Abramson and Modzelewski 2011Þ. These conclusions are consistent with a long line of sociological thinking on morality. Drawing on Durkheim’s ð1997Þ analysis of suicide, for example, sociologists of religion and health have focused on how the presence of so- cial ties facilitates individual moral worth, meaning, and self-preservation ðIdler and Kasl 1992; Maimon and Kuhl 2008; Wray, Colen, and Pescoso- lido 2011Þ. Offering one canonical reading of Durkheim’s analysis, Bellah ð1973, p. xliiiÞ concludes that “it is the very intensity of group interaction itself that produces social ideas and ideals and . . . it is from the warmth of group life that they become compelling and attractive to individuals.” In ad- dition to providing “warmth” through social integration, groups also exert regulation, shaping and constraining the ability of actors to diverge from their moral motivations or abandon their moral identities ðDurkheim 1997Þ. This literature thus offers a clear prediction that can be brought to bear on empirical material. If freegans have achieved any sense of living morally as second nature, it likely stems from having created groups or interactional spaces within their moral habitus in line with the social environment. This is not the same as saying that group life is purely harmonious, only that it affords individuals the opportunity to act out moral motivations in ways that affirm moral identities. As noted in the introduction, however, I posit another, material route to finding a moral sense of place. Materiality and Moral Second Nature Durkheim’s thinking about morality evolved over the course of his life ðsee Abend 2008Þ. Although he maintained that “society . . . is the source and the end of morality” ðDurkheim 1953, p. 59Þ, in Elementary Forms he ex- plored more circuitous connections between individual and group moral life. In fact, although morality is derived from society, its power stems from the fact that it is perceived as extrasocial, coming from “something greater than us” ð1965, p. 257Þ. Along the same lines, in Suicide, he insisted that “man cannot live without attachment to some object which transcends and sur- vives him” ð1997, p. 210Þ. Hence, we invariably see morality as originating not in society but in external entities, such as gods, or abstract concepts, like “nature” ðDurkheim 1953, p. 79Þ.8 7 The same point has been made for social movements ðHirsch 1990; Polletta 1999; O’Hearn 2009Þ. 8 Durkheim’s argument in Elementary Forms for “primitive” societies is analogous to his argument about “advanced” ones, in which the moral regulation of society must come from an entity outside of it: the state ðsee also Durkheim 1957Þ. Making the City Second Nature 1023 American Journal of Sociology It is from this interplay of the social and nonsocial in moral life that Durkheim’s conception of totems originates. Actors make totems out of the desire to represent the impersonal social forces that they see as acting on them. Thus, although totems are “the source of the moral life of the clan” ð1965, p. 219Þ, they are nonetheless always, in part, tied to something out- side the clan, such as wild animals ðp. 87Þ. Far from being simple outgrowths of moral life, totems exert moral influence over individuals, as evidenced by prohibitions on eating animals of the totemic species. Consequently, the religious forces Durkheim describes are “physical as well as human, moral as well as material” ðp. 254Þ. Subsequent work provides a further basis for considering the material world in moral life. Drawing on Lévi-Strauss’s ð1962Þ critique of Durkheim, Jerolmack ð2013, p. 14Þ shows that the animals and plants drawn on in totemic religion are not just “good to think with” but enable qualitatively different ways of thinking, perceiving, and classifying the social world. The implica- tion is that the objects coded as “moral” are not just arbitrarily pulled from the environment but instead are selected on the basis of moral beliefs and re- worked through moral practices. In fact, groups in a “moral minority,” like the freegans, may indeed be pushed to draw on items that are not coded as moral by the dominant group—such as, I show later, waste. A central contribution of this article is that relationships between humans and the material world may not just enhance or contribute to the confir- mation of moral identities in group life but may actually themselves be- come the basis of an individual’s moral sense of place. The notion of a practi- cal reworking of the material environment is an important element of habitus ðLizardo and Strand 2010, p. 211Þ, but I break from Bourdieu’s ð1990, pp. 71, 76, 273Þ assumption of a three-way homology between the subjective hab- itus and the objective social and material world. Instead, an actor whose moral habitus is out of sync with the behavioral expectations and patterns of the social environment may nonetheless be like a “fish in water” with re- spect to his or her ongoing reordering of physical space or material milieu. At the same time, linking the dialogical relationship between habitus and en- vironment to developments elsewhere in sociology, I insist that objects are not just passive props in a social morality play. Instead, as Latour ð2005, pp. 10, 74Þ argues, objects may actually do things that social actors cannot and can transform rather than simply transmit the meanings that humans attribute to them.9 I focus on three distinctive roles that objects can—and, as hinted at by the existing literature, do—play in moral life: ð1Þ proofs of moral labor, ð2Þ mark- ers of moral boundaries, and ð3Þ reminders of moral commitments. 9 Although I agree with Latour that objects “make a difference,” I make no claims to the existence of a “flat” world in which objects live moral lives or are intentional or reflexive in the same way as humans ðsee Jerolmack and Tavory 2014Þ. 1024 Moral proofs.—Recent work in the symbolic interactionist tradition has shown how behaviors toward nonhumans can reflect, anticipate, and even prompt human action ðTavory 2010Þ. Jerolmack ð2013, chap. 5; Jerolmack and Tavory 2014Þ, for example, explores how urban pigeon handlers’ rela- tionships with birds can serve to foster new human connections. Yet even if we accept the Durkheimian notion that the roots of moral values themselves always reside in social life, this does not mean that all moral action is directed toward or made with reference to other human beings. Pigeon handlers— like an animal shelter employee or art conservator—may very well have moral identities founded on their relationships with the birds themselves. I draw on the study by Boltanski and Thévenot ð2006, p. 131Þ, who argue that moral justifications must be buttressed by moral “proofs,” which in turn are “based on objects that are external to persons.”10 But, once again, moral- ity is not just about proving that we are moral to others. Actors with strong moral identities in social worlds that make acting on moral motivations dif- ficult must also find ways of proving their morality to themselves. In this re- spect, having tangible, physical evidence of moral action can be a crucial confirmation of the depth of moral commitments, even while other actions or objects can contradict them. Moral markers.—The drawing of boundaries between groups and indi- viduals graded on a hierarchy of moral worth is a key aspect of moral life ðLamont 1992, 2000; Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann 2006; Sherman 2006; Sanghera et al. 2011Þ. But what makes the “symbolic” boundaries of moral- ity “real”? Cultural sociologists have argued that symbolic meanings are sta- bilized and transmitted through physical carriers ðMukerji 1994; Molotch 2003; McDonnell 2010Þ. Indeed, a range of research has suggested that phys- ical objects can make boundaries a more consistent presence in social life than discursive expressions.11 I show how freegans distinguish themselves from others, even when placed in social situations ðlike jobsÞ when acting on the moral motivation to live “naturally” seems difficult, using material identifiers. Yet precisely because of their material presence, objects can also invoke moral boundaries when human actors do not intend to do so ðsee Tavory 2010Þ. The “wrong” object— like a Wal-Mart bag carried into a “fair-trade” shop ðBrown 2009, p. 872Þ— can highlight discrepancies between moral values and action to both external audiences and actors themselves. 10 Identity theory also considers “resources”—physical objects alongside social relation- ships—as crucial for ���identity verification” ðBurke and Stets 2009, chap. 5Þ. However, these authors quite explicitly move away from viewing material resources as distinctive from social ones in their functions. 11 The role of physical markers in constructing boundaries has been shown in studies on subcultures ðHebdige 1979, p. 78Þ, class differentiation ðGoffman 1959, p. 36; Bourdieu 1984, p. 184Þ, or religion ðWinchester 2008, p. 1770; Tavory 2010Þ. Making the City Second Nature 1025 American Journal of Sociology Moral reminders.—As Durkheim ð1965, p. 391Þ noted, society “cannot be assembled all the time.” Totems serve to remind the individual of his or her moral motivations even when that individual is outside of the social context from which those motivations originated. We might predict that, in a modern city, where individuals move rapidly between different groups and locations ðsee Simmel 1⁄21903 1971Þ, such “totems,” far from being primitive hold- overs, might actually become more important in sustaining moral identities. Indeed, Jerolmack and Tavory ð2014, p. 73Þ argue that “everyday totemism” reaches far beyond religious life. Interactions with even “mundane” non- humans such as pigeons ðor more obviously signifying ones, such as flags or clothingÞ can allow humans to connect with social groups “in absentia.” Once again, though, we should go beyond simply seeing objects as a proxy for social ties, or what Durkheim ð1997Þ described as “social integration.” Objects can also step into the other role Durkheim envisioned for the group: moral “regulation,” one of “monitoring, oversight, and guidance” ðWray et al. 2011, p. 508Þ. As I show, nonhuman objects can forcefully remind freegans of their moral identities, even when they are outside the freegan group itself, and in contexts in which freegans might prefer to set them aside temporarily. DIVING IN: METHODOLOGY I elaborate my theoretical argument about the relationship between moral identities, moral motivations, the habitus, and physical objects with an em- pirical study of how freegans rework their material environment. This study is based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork with the activist organization freegan.info in New York City, between 2007 and 2009. Over this time, I attended scores of freegan.info events: “trash tours” ðpublicly an- nounced dumpster dives open to newcomers and mediaÞ, wild food foraging expeditions in city parks, collaborative sewing “skillshares,” “feasts” held in freegans’ homes, and monthly organizing meetings. As time went on, I be- gan to spend time in the freegan bike workshop and freegan “office”—really, a nook in the cluttered, windowless basement of a converted warehouse in Brooklyn—which led to more interactions outside of formal group events. In spring 2009, I conducted 20 interviews, which constituted nearly a com- plete census of active members of the freegan.info group who self-identified as “freegan.”12 I also analyzed several thousand e-mails from freegan.info’s “freeganworld” listserve ðwhich has over a thousand subscribersÞ, giving me a better sense of freegan ideology and practice across contexts. In 2012, I re- turned to New York and conducted follow-up interviews and observations. 12 I defined “active” group members as people who attended freegan events over a period of at least three months. Only two such individuals declined to be interviewed. 1026 Fieldwork initially focused on freegans’ public, performative claims- making. The centrality of nature to freegans’ moral worldviews, and their discursive critiques of urban life, emerged through the course of observation. These findings led me to ask whether and how freegans carved out a moral place in a city they frequently characterized as immoral. As time went on, I attempted to test emerging hypotheses derived from theory through field- work, a process of theoretical reconstruction congruent with the extended case method ðBurawoy 1998Þ. As Tavory ð2011, p. 289Þ observes, “the less the environment is built to cater to a specific category of people, the more moral situations would arise in these people’s lives.” I thus view freegans—with the apparently gaping chasm between their articulated moral identities and the reality of the urban environment—as a strategic research site for examin- ing in accentuated form how living in an adverse context can actually be- come the basis of a moral sense of place. A crucial objective of participant observation was getting past the ad hoc reasons freegans offered for their behavior to identify any underlying mo- tivations, which Vaisey ð2009Þ argues are best identified with forced-choice survey questions. But his argument assumes that sociologists must ultimately rely on some kind of verbalized representation to study moral beliefs and be- haviors. Using participant observation, however, we can actually see pat- terns of behavior and identify trends that reveal the underlying motiva- tions behind them by “sampling” across a range of situations and moments in time ðJerolmack and Khan 2014Þ. Ethnography thus is a valuable tech- nique for studying morality “in the wild” ðHitlin and Vaisey 2010, p. 11Þ, as actors deal with practical moral conundrums and conflicts. Nonetheless, the concern with the materiality of morality adopted here poses problems for ethnographic examination. The value of observing moral action rather than asking about it stems from the notion that meanings are made “between individuals” rather than “by or within individuals” ðJerol- mack and Khan 2014, p. 200Þ. However, I assert that moral motivations are also acted out between individuals and nonhuman objects. By defini- tion, though, any situation I could access involved at least two humans: the observer and the observed. I adopted three strategies to evaluate if, how, and why freegans’ actions were directed at objects. First, I looked for the unintended material “traces” ðLatour 2005, p. 193Þ of freegan practices. Second, by quite literally “getting my hands dirty” at freegan events—by, for example, eating discarded food— I gradually gained access to the more unguarded and candid moments of freegans’ lives. Finally, I also began to engage in freegan practices on my own, including subsisting almost entirely on discarded food for a six-month period. Through embodying freegan morality myself, I more fully under- stood how everyday relationships to the physical world could help sustain a sense of moral place in an apparently adverse context. Making the City Second Nature 1027 American Journal of Sociology FREEGAN MORAL IDENTITY AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF URBAN LIFE Consistent with the definitions of morality cited above, freegans invoked deeply rooted, cross-situational and cross-temporal identities founded on the “right” or “wrong” way to live to explain their involvement in freegan- ism. David, a bearded white male in his early 30s, claimed that—despite growing up in a conventional, middle-class home—“1⁄2I always felt like I had to minimize my impact and live as nonviolently as possible. I’ve ba- sically always been an anarchist.” Prior to discovering freeganism, three- quarters of freegan.info participants reported their primary activist involve- ment as animal rights, a movement whose participants are overwhelmingly motivated by moral beliefs ðJasper and Nelkin 1992Þ. Most moved beyond veganism when they realized the moral limits of a vegan diet: continued sup- port for environmentally destructive agriculture or poor working conditions in the food industry. While freegans’ worldviews were undoubtedly shaped by their early in- volvement in other social movements and activist networks, freegans none- theless experienced their motivations to act morally as a permanent, intrinsic part of their identities. As Jeff articulated, “I was always radical. Sometimes it was latent, sometimes it wasn’t encouraged, sometimes it was covered up by other things. But I was always radical.” My own observations of freegan. info participants during an extended period of time ðover five yearsÞ sug- gested that living morally, for them, was not just a temporary project. In- stead, as one put it, “Realizing what you believe and trying to live that is very complicated and something that a lot of people—especially myself— are going to spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out.” Whether or not they still identified as freegans, when I returned in 2012, all of the rein- terviewed informants offered examples of how trying to live morally con- tinued to structure their lives. More than just rhetoric, freegans’ moral beliefs were built into their everyday practices, or habitus. David began dumpster diving when he real- ized that even organic farming killed small mammals and insects. Although I could not verify his claim not to have bought food for 13 years, I never saw him acquire food any other way than “dumpstering.” At various times, I also observed him spending hours searching for and dismantling mouse- traps, meticulously picking live flies off of wax paper, and berating other residents of his shared house for poisoning bedbugs. Madison quit a job with a six-figure salary and sold a luxurious Manhattan apartment after having her “mind blown” at a freegan.info event. Perhaps most notably, even though it was, as one freegan put it, “horrifying and disgusting” to others, most freegans regularly recovered and ate wasted food because they perceived purchasing food as morally anathema. Freegans, then, appeared to be indi- 1028 viduals with strong moral identities who made their capacity to act on their moral motivations a core and enduring part of their sense of self. But what did living morally actually mean? The definition of freegan- ism on freegan.info’s website is a sprawling list of virtues and vices: “Free- gans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed” ðhttp://freegan.infoÞ But in interviews as well as in public events that explained freeganism to those unfamiliar with the movement, freegans frequently focused on a moral imperative to live more “naturally.” As Benjamin—a freegan activist in his mid-20s who lived in a squatted building in Brooklyn—explained, “We’re just so disconnected from it 1⁄2nature. One of the goals 1⁄2of freeganism is just connecting with each other and connecting with the rest of life on earth, connecting with the earth itself.” Freegans evoked humanity’s fall from grace, central to Judeo-Christian moral narratives, and made nature central to the story. As Evie, a speech pathologist in a public hospital and lifetime Palestinian liberation activist, articulated during one meeting, “There was a point where human beings stepped out of nature and decided to control nature,” and it was at this point that the seeds for a whole range of social ills—mass consumption, ex- ploitation of animals and humans, and ecological devastation—were planted. Nature provided both a centerpiece of freegan discourse and a guiding principle for new freegan.info projects. Proposing that the group start an urban garden, Guadalupe noted, “My ideal is a little different than just having a mini-farm. I’m very interested in letting the plants that just nat- urally grow in the area do their thing and even help them grow. This in- cludes ‘weeds.’ I don’t really believe in the concept of an undesirable plant. I believe in biodiversity.” That freegans would evoke nature as central to their moral worldviews was unsurprising. The power of nature as moral principle has a long history in strands of American culture ðNash 1973; Cronon 1996Þ, often in opposi- tion to very different framings of “the good” in terms of consumption, com- petition, or free-market capitalism. Unsurprisingly, sociologists have shown that beliefs about nature—for example, freegans’ claim that living natu- rally meant not consuming animals—are culturally and temporally variable social constructs ðGreider and Garkovich 1994; Freudenburg, Frickel, and Gramling 1995; Fourcade 2011Þ. Yet, paradoxically, research also shows that the appeal of nature as a framework for determining right and wrong stems from the popular belief that nature is free from social influence ðBell 1994, p. 7; Jerolmack 2013, pp. 134–35Þ. This was precisely the sense in which freegans used nature: to refer to something that was immutable, primor- dial, and uncontestable, a moral concept “outside of us” in the Durkheim- ian sense. Making the City Second Nature 1029 American Journal of Sociology Freegans’ discursive commitment to living naturally and the reality of freegan.info as a group based in a city built by humans would thus seem to be in direct contradiction. Indeed, when I asked freegans in interviews about their views of urban life, they often repeated a familiar American cul- tural trope that valorizes the natural aspects of rural life and demonizes the city ðsee Hummon 1990Þ. One freegan characterized the city as an “evil haven of decadence and debauchery”; another described it as “incredibly psychologically destructive” because it separated residents from natural spaces. Ryan speculated that “rates of depression are so high in America because we’re in a city, and we aren’t in some heavily forested area being spontaneous and finding wild asparagus.” On a more practical level, aspects of the urban environment made con- forming to some elements of the officially articulated freegan identity dif- ficult. According to the movement’s informal manifesto Why Freegan? and the homepage of freegan.info, freegans engaged in a “total boycott” of the capitalist economic system, meeting as many needs as possible outside the market. For example, freegans claimed they could live for “free” by squat- ting illegally in abandoned ðor “wasted”Þ buildings. Yet in New York, prop- erty values are high enough that abandoned buildings are rarely left un- occupied for long, and the police actively search for and remove unlawful occupants. As such, even though “true freegans don’t pay rent,” as one told me, the reality was that nearly all of them did. Some had eliminated rent payments, but only by buying a home outright. The result was an admission that, for all their political and moral commitments, there were many parts of freegans’ urban lives that they could not control. As one freegan told me, “there are so many things I see that I can’t change. I can’t change the way the building I live in operates. I know that if I lived elsewhere, I would do things completely differently.” A similar apparent divergence between articulated values and avenues for moral action could be made for employment. One of the pamphlets that freegan.info passed out during events on public sidewalks averred, “Free- gans are able to greatly reduce or altogether eliminate the need to constantly be employed.” But nearly all freegans maintained conventional, waged oc- cupations, because needing money was an “unpleasant reality” as long as they lived in a city. While some had found employment in activist organizations or nonprofits, others worked in more clearly problematic fields like product design. As Evie, herself a homeowner, admitted, “I’m freegan in lots of lit- tle things in my life. But at the end of the day, I am paying taxes and fund- ing a couple of enormous wars, and sort of everything bad that’s going on in the world.” Reflecting on the divergence between freegans’ moral ideals and the exigencies of urban life, one freegan sighed, “Manhattan is one giant contradiction.” 1030 CLAIMING CITY CONTRADICTION, FINDING URBAN NATURE How did freegans respond to this apparent disparity? When confronted with the gap between the two, most freegans offered to others what might be framed as a moral justification: they stayed in the city because it was an efficacious site for their activism. At one “freeganism 101” event, a new- comer asked Jeff why he hadn’t moved to the countryside. He replied, “Setting up a commune out in the country would be good for me, but I don’t know how that would be for the overall resistance. I definitely want to get out of the city eventually . . . 1⁄2but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in all different places . . . and lots of it needs to happen here, and not in the country.” In truth, it is difficult to imagine freegans’ polit- ical tactics outside of an urban context. Cities concentrate retailers in a small geographic area, allowing freegans to organize public, performative dumpster dives for passersby and the media and to recover a wide range of goods relatively easily.13 In a sense, what looks like moral contradiction is thus inherent in freeganism: the movement depends on the unnatural urban environment in order to protest the economic and social system that the city symbolizes, all in the name of living more naturally. If we view “morality” through the lens of tool kit theory, freegans’ ex- planation for the gap between beliefs and practice, and the various ways they deploy that reasoning in interaction, could be the focal point of anal- ysis. Or we could view freegans as satisfied with reaching a certain, sub- optimal threshold of acting morally ðsee Gigerenzer 2010Þ. I have argued, however, that the notion of moral habitus implies that action creates a more ongoing sense that living out a moral identity is “second nature.” Did this process of finding a moral place in the city happen through group life— that is, social dynamics within freegan.info? Certainly, as Durkheim would suggest, freegan.info provided a space where freegans could freely discuss, develop, and reinforce moral beliefs that would otherwise struggle to find a hearing. During feasts, for example, freegans held freewheeling debates about elements of their natural ethos, such as whether humans were “pri- mordial vegetarians,” if they should return to agriculture or revert to forag- ing, or whether human beings should voluntarily go extinct. Yet, despite the sharing of freegan skills I describe below, freegan.info was less successful in helping freegans act on their moral motivations. Free- gan meetings were often filled with announcements that one or another practice or product had turned out to be environmentally destructive or 13 In five years of monitoring the freegan world e-mail list, I have not encountered a single mention of rural freeganism. The one academic account I can find of rural free- gans notes that they frequently go into a nearby city in order to dumpster dive ðGross 2009, p. 61Þ. Making the City Second Nature 1031 American Journal of Sociology exploitative, leading to a new escalation of what moral living entailed with little sense of how to achieve it. In 2008, Rob and Leslie, two core freegan. info activists, attempted to extend freegan principles and address concerns that freegan.info was facilitating an insufficient range of anticapitalist or ecoconscious practices by founding a collective household for anarchists in Brooklyn. The space, “Surrealestate,” hosted a bike workshop, community meals with dumpster-dived food, and activist fund-raisers. Yet even that space charged rent, which led many in the group to reject the very notion that it was “freegan.” Others alleged that the project constituted first-wave gentrification. This acrimony was emblematic of a frequently evoked “basic lack of trust” within freegan.info, which I saw play out in strident arguments during freegan.info meetings. The overall sense, as one person told me, was that “there’s no real freegan community.” While the presence of conflict certainly does not invalidate the possibil- ity of a social group providing a moral sense of place—Durkheim, after all, never claimed that groups had to be harmonious—other evidence also sug- gests otherwise. In interviews, many freegans claimed that “true” freegans engaged in practices like dumpster diving “on their own”—not just at free- gan.info events. As one explained, “Freegan.info is just a side project to the real thing, which is being freegan itself.” Some freegans even experienced the group as a barrier to living morally: in 2008, Guadalupe, a Latina mother from a low-income background, announced that she would be “stepping back” because she had spent so much time with the group that she had been unable to dumpster dive enough to support her family and thus was buying food—a situation she saw as morally untenable. When I returned in 2012, freegan.info had collapsed under the weight of internal discord, yet most freegans described how they continued to deepen their understanding of what was required to maintain a moral identity and thus faced the same challenges of creating a sense of affirming that identity—albeit without any support from the group itself. What is more, while at its height freegan.info met only a few times a month, clashes between freegans’ moral habitus and the social environment of the city were frequent. In a society where many social situations involve buying something—from a beer to a movie ticket—being a freegan meant either profound isolation or constant violations of freegan principles. As Barbara told me, “You can sit in a room of five or ten people, and they’re talking about bargains and sales and ‘Where’d you buy that?’ and what the latest technology is, and you can really feel like you don’t want to partic- ipate at all, or that you have to guard it 1⁄2your freeganism.” Benjamin elaborated how the ideology behind his freeganism fed into a feeling of alien- ation and disaffection: “I always stand around in a room full of people and think, ‘Oh my God, no one is an anticapitalist here.’ I feel so alone, I feel so out of place. . . . It’s so lonely. It’s depressing as hell to live here 1⁄2in 1032 New York.” Others reported an involuntarily shrinking social network as nonfreegans were pushed away from them and few new freegans appeared to fill the holes. Despite their deeply rooted moral identities and the barriers that social existence in the city posed to acting on them, though, freegans still insisted they were living morally. Perhaps more importantly, many debates about abstract principles did not translate into anxiety in day-to-day life, suggest- ing that freegans were not among those actors who “churn through their moral narratives in their internal conversations almost obsessively” ðSayer 2005, p. 29Þ. In their daily lives, both within and outside freegan.info, free- gans showed few signs of a Bourdieusian “hysteresis,” suggesting that their habitus and environment were, in a sense, aligned. As I show, though, the en- vironment they were aligning with may not have been primarily a social one. Freegans could rarely articulate how they managed to find a moral sense of place in the city, except that it had something to do with nature and the city itself. As one told me, “Freeganism . . . it’s a way of downscaling the city somehow. It tells me, ‘Okay, I can live small here.’” Rob, a tall freegan with a shock of curly red hair, speculated, “Within the city, nature is a park, a tree, or a bug. Or maybe it’s noises or creepy things or shadows. That’s nature to me. Freeganism is a way of relating to nature in the city. It lets things happen organically. Everyone is part of the equation. It ends up being just, sort of, magic. People are like nature and there are all sorts of varie- ties and uniquenesses in any situation.” As I argue in the rest of this article, freegans made a city seemingly full of contradictions into a “common-sense world” ðBourdieu 1990, p. 58Þ, within which living naturally was second nature, by practically appropriating and reconfiguring their material world into moral proofs, markers, and reminders. MAKING THE CITY “SECOND NATURE” Moral Proofs and Natural Resources Freegans’ “wild food foraging tours” through city parks were, in large part, neither political nor practical. Foraging events lacked the performative cri- tique of capitalism that made freegan trash tours appealing to the media. They were not particularly helpful in allowing freegans to survive “out- side” capitalism either. Ryan, an experienced forager, got only a fraction of his calories from it; Guadalupe remarked that dumpsters have “tastier food.” Yet whenever Ryan announced his willingness to lead a tour, the group was invariably enthusiastic and turnout high. The appeal, I argue, stemmed from the way tours functioned as a kind of “nature work” ðFine 1998, p. 4Þ, a directed process of relating to the physical environment that enabled freegans to see the city as providing natural resources that func- tioned as tangible proofs of their efforts. Making the City Second Nature 1033 American Journal of Sociology On one tour along the northwest edge of Manhattan, a visiting activist from California commented how, to his surprise, the plants the group was finding were identical to those he found in his home state, despite vast dif- ferences in climate. Ryan replied, “There’s lots of biodiversity in the rain- forest, but there’s unique species here 1⁄2in the city too.” Both presented the city as an ecosystem, replete with its own species, flows of resources, and cycles of food availability. Wild food foraging tours were not just a way of imagining the city as a natural ecosystem, but treating it as such through concrete and material—yet, as the notion of habitus suggests, simultaneously also symbolically and morally laden—practices. As Ryan admonished the group, “Here you see a bunch of ostrich ferns growing in a clump together. If you know to only pick half of them, they’ll grow back. But pick all of them, and it dies.” At another point, Ryan’s guidance more directly touched on a key moral motivation for freegans—finding value in waste. Motioning to a downed tree, he observed, “Lots of things that look like waste aren’t waste when you look a little closer.” He took us to the other side and re- vealed edible mushrooms growing on it, which freegans then picked—in moderation. Expeditions to find burdock root and edible flowers were not the only moments in which freegans approached the city as a natural resource base that furnished proofs of their ability to live naturally. They also did so with respect to human-made urban waste. Of course, despite a social scientific trope of waste as “urban metabolism” ðHeynen, Kaika, and Swyngedouw 2006Þ, there is nothing superficially natural about New York’s vast waste disposal apparatus. Indeed, in their public events, freegans often went to great lengths to emphasize the highly unnatural social processes that cre- ated waste. As one freegan explained to a group of 15 newcomers on a trash tour, “It’s not individuals, it’s the system 1⁄2that produces waste. The stores are trying to extract surplus value, to borrow a Marxist term. But our sys- tem ends up with a huge amount of waste and unrecognized costs.” While in their deliberate, planned events waste served as a symbol of all that was wrong with the city, in everyday practice waste became a fixed aspect of the physical environment. One weekend, I joined Benjamin and Lucie, two young freegans, for a free art festival on Governor’s Island. We had been discussing the recent closure of the Occupy Wall Street encamp- ment, and I commented that the island had large tracts of open space that could be occupied. Benjamin replied, pensively, “Yeah, but what would you eat? You’d have to go into the city to dumpster 1⁄2dive, and there are only ferries on the weekend.” Lucie laughed, “You remember that food comes from places other than dumpsters, right? You could farm it.” “Oh right,” Benjamin replied, “I forgot.” In effect, the social origins of food waste had receded to the background in a moral habitus that drew its power from treating waste as a natural resource. 1034 The availability of garbage depends on the vicissitudes of store employ- ees and sanitation workers, yet for self-described “urban foragers” like freegans, it was nature that provided the waste. Noted one freegan, “The difference between foraging and agriculture is trying to control nature, versus preparing yourself to respond to whatever nature throws at you.” Although waste in New York is so abundant that freegans could easily eat only prepared food or only organic produce if they wanted, freegans none- theless often “rescued” unappealing items and turned them into food. One autumn evening, the group uncovered dozens of ears of dried, ornamental corn. When one newcomer moved to put them back in the garbage—as- suming they were inedible—Madison snatched them. The next week, she returned having transformed them into hominy: a time-consuming and im- practical move, but one that affirmed a moral identity that, as she put it, allowed her to make use of “whatever nature throws at you.” While freegan political activities were a direct challenge to urban social institutions, freegan nature-work transformed the environment in more subtle ways, through de- veloping a habitus that would allow freegans to partly subsist on precisely what their nature-work on the city made available. While freegans’ self-description as “urban foragers” and their labeling of waste as a “natural” resource might seem strained, these discourses were tied to concrete practices. One freegan observed how the often unreflective, in- grained habits of a dumpster diver paralleled those she envisioned foragers— the reference point for her moral motivations—as having: “When you go dumpster diving . . . you do things in the natural way. It’s like . . . going in the forest to find food. . . . You need to explore, first, to find good spots. Then you need to really work for your food: it’s harder, you need to open bags, to search, to climb into a dumpster. . . . It’s always surprising. You don’t know what you’re going to find. It makes it more natural. It’s like going back to the time when people would go into natural spaces to get food.” For her, dumpster diving was “natural”—and, therefore, also in her eyes, moral—precisely because it required effort. It was precisely the adver- sity of place that allowed her to have a “sense of her place” that she could envision as analogous to life in a forest. As the quote suggested, even as freegans imbued the urban waste stream with moral meaning, the physical characteristics of the waste stream itself required ongoing readjustments. This was particularly evident with respect to the way the rhythms of the urban waste disposal system structured free- gans’ time. While a grocery store might be open 16 hours a day, the win- dow of time for dumpster diving is just a few hours between when stores close and garbage trucks appear. One night, I was working in the freegan office with David—who did not cook and usually ate directly from dump- sters—when he looked at his computer and declared, “It’s 8:30. We can almost go dumpstering.” Eating like a forager meant gathering food at the Making the City Second Nature 1035 American Journal of Sociology inconvenient times it was available and going without otherwise. Need- less to say, frequent changes in stores’ disposal practices themselves pushed freegans to reconfigure their routines to shift to new sites or new times. For freegans working normal jobs, this was not necessarily easy—which was, perhaps, part of what made it meaningful. Marion, a woman who had been “surviving” from waste reclamation for more than five years, despite having a significant income, explained, “I try to project and say ‘This is what I have, I probably won’t go on this day because of the weather.’ But I have to plan in advance to make sure I’m prepared. . . . It gets laborious, to stay on the street, late late at night, day after day. So I try to limit it to get what I need, at least. It can so easily turn into still 1⁄2being on the street at 1:30 in the morning. It’s exhausting for me.” In order to act on their con- ceptualization of living naturally, freegans had to conform to the rhythm of waste metabolism on a seasonal as well as daily basis. Back-to-school shop- ping season, for example, was one of the only times freegans could dumpster dive office supplies. Barbara—a tenured and, by her own admission, well- paid public school teacher—noted that the “only” time she could find instant oatmeal was during move-out days from college dorms. While she could certainly have bought instant oatmeal and no one in the group would know the difference, it appeared that she didn’t. Instead, for two Saturdays in a row, I found her alone in the dumpsters of New York University looking for oat- meal. Her solitary efforts suggested that, insofar as urban waste functioned as a moral “proof,” she herself was the primary audience. At times, freegans’ public denunciation of waste and their treatment of waste as a finite natural resource base were overtly in tension. In 2009, Ryan lamented, “There has been less waste lately. . . . No more bulk boxes with one bottle broken and the rest intact but slimy.” Some speculated that the decline in waste output was a result of the economic downturn. Others, though, returned to ecological metaphors, noting that a particular “fertile” chain of stores in Murray Hill had been “overharvested” and thus become “exhausted” by the overly frequent “exploitation” of local divers. A lack of care toward the natural resource base that waste represented, then, could serve as a sign of a habitus gone awry. In a context in which physical rather than social relationships were key to affirming moral identities, these cir- cumstances threatened freegans’ “identity kit” ðGoffman 1961, pp. 14–21Þ. Some freegans even embarked on a series of collective efforts—including a futile visit to the stores’ managers asking them to “give back the garbage”— to rectify the situation. Indeed, throughout my time with the group, there was an ongoing con- flict between those who wanted to call attention to waste in order to grow the movement and those who wanted to keep it hidden in order to ensure their ability to maintain themselves on the system’s margins. This conflict played out in practice: while some welcomed others to join them on dives 1036 outside those scheduled by freegan.info, others would hide evidence of their activities out of fear that nonfreegan divers would discover their favorite spots. Paradoxically, the nature of freegans’ resource base—and its depen- dence on store managers’ and employees’ fickle actions—meant that free- gans’ political actions threatened to deprive them of the very objects they used to prove to themselves that they were living naturally. Such tensions are constitutive of moral life, insofar as we recognize that moral identities exist alongside other, nonmoral identities ðStryker and Burke 2000, p. 290Þ, and the dispositions of the habitus are only partly coherent and integrated, owing to their construction within multiple environments ðWacquant 2014, p. 6Þ. Moral Markers and Human Nature Urban waste was not just a proof of freegans’ moral identities but also a way of physically differentiating freegans from both the capitalist main- stream and other animal rights or environmental activists, with whom free- gans made common political cause but whom they saw as morally wanting. Speaking in front of an otherwise receptive audience—an undergraduate class on food, waste, and sustainability at NYU—David lectured about the uselessness of formal education: “We live in a profoundly deskilled society. We’ve been infantilized, and very few of us know how to do anything out- side of our little narrow box of employment.” Real skills, he observed, were those that would allow humans to survive in nature—skills that freegans were already developing. “We have false ideas about what constitutes fresh food,” he noted. “A lot of food tastes better when it looks worse. But those are not the tactile and aesthetic qualities people look for when they pur- chase produce.” During the trash tour after the presentation, David pulled me over to a bin filled with discarded tofu, chicken, and cheese from the store’s hot food salad bar. He commented, “A lot of vegans would just leave this here, but look.” David plunged into the mixture and pulled out a sauce-covered white chunk and explained how to identify whether it was meat on the basis of the way it broke when crushed between the thumb and forefinger. For him, living naturally off the city’s resource base—rather than unnaturally from its supermarkets—required connecting with another version of nature: human nature, embodied in corporal practice ðIgnatow 2009, p. 100Þ. Indeed, suc- cessful urban foraging required all the senses to be constantly if not always consciously attuned to the physical surroundings in a natural way, because edible items were signaled not by neon signs but by more subtle and diffi- cult to discern hints: lumpy plastic bags or the faint smell of food. The above example was not the only time that David used physical ob- jects as a marker of moral distinction. At monthly “Really Really Free Mar- Making the City Second Nature 1037 American Journal of Sociology kets,” where freegans would gather with other scavengers and anarchists to swap surplus household items, freegan.info would often provide a buffet replete with carefully washed, aesthetically pleasing dumpster-dived food. But when I accompanied David to more mainstream animal rights con- ferences—where he was a frequent gadfly—he reversed the style of presen- tation. He would make a show of the fact that freegans’ flyers were printed on the back sides of “rescued” paper—in sharp contrast to the glossy pam- phlets of the Humane Society of the United States—and flaunt that the food on offer at the table was past its sell-by date, not free of genetically modified organisms or organic, and obviously from a dumpster. These objects helped David balance a political desire to be present at the conference with a moral motivation to distance himself from mainstream veganism, which he saw as a “bourgeois ideology that worships consump- tion.” Certainly, anyone in attendance who spoke to David would become aware of his views, but, on one level, they didn’t need to because the bound- ary was materially manifest. A similar duality appeared during regular trash tours, when freegans used expensive and desirable recovered items—like still-bagged organic coffee—as an “interactional hook” ðTavory 2010, p. 57Þ. The lure of free stuff would temporarily drag passersby into freegans’ po- litical project. Yet if when the freegans revealed the foods’ origins the others expressed disgust, these objects instantiated moral boundaries. Although, in these instances, freegans’ self-differentiation was overt, their moral boundary marking through sensory relationships to food was a more implicit part of their everyday habitus. In response to a query about food safety, Marion quipped, “I never look at the sell-by date, it’s irrelevant to me. It’s about the condition of the food: you smell it, you taste it, and if it’s horrible, don’t 1⁄2eat it.” Eating safely meant cultivating knowledge of the material properties of food, knowledge that freegans claimed had been lost with urbanization: “Not knowing about food, and thinking about safety standards, that comes from living in the city. . . . If you take a yogurt, and you don’t know what it is and you don’t know how it’s made, and all you know is the expiration date, then after the expiration date you’ll throw it away. If you know how a yogurt works, you know it could be good two months after. You just taste it.” Media and bystanders frequently queried whether dumpster divers ever got sick. Invariably, freegans responded that no one ever ailed from recovered food, asserting first their own knowledge of food—which set them aside from the incompetence of the ordinary con- sumer—and then a more general claim about the real nature of the human body. As Guadalupe told one reporter, “People in this country are a lot more freaked out about dirt than they need to be. We need a little dirt in our lives for our immune systems to be strong.” These comments were not just bluster. Freegan.info as an organization discouraged participants from eating straight in front of the camera, for fear 1038 of the media’s propensity to splice together images to maximize dumpster diving’s “ick factor.” Outside the public eye, though, freegans would often spend hours debating politics and revolutionary strategy while eating di- rectly from the trash bin. My own meals with freegans in their homes, as well as glances into freegans’ refrigerators, suggested a striking willingness to eat over-the-hill and rotten food. In effect, these scavenged items were exemplars of how “the most mundane objects . . . 1⁄2can become a form of stigmata, tokens of a self-imposed exile” ðHebdige 1979, p. 2Þ from the still essentially middle-class world in which freegans lived and worked. And, in a Latourian sense, these objects occasionally “acted back” in unpredictable ways: although reticent to admit it, some freegans could recount how their embodied confidence that they were conforming to humanity’s more resil- ient internal nature led them to eat food that left them sick for days. Freegans’ moral habitus of relating to physical objects could help main- tain boundaries when the more conventional aspects of their lives threat- ened to erase them. From 2007 to 2009, freegan.info operated a bicycle workshop in the cramped basement space of an anarchist “infoshop” in a low- income neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Leslie, a college-educated “rad- ical social ecologist” in her early 30s who was one of the shop’s main volun- teers, described how her first visit to the space was “exhilarating” because, for the first time in her life, she realized that she could “build and create things and figure out how to do stuff, solve problems, use tools.” Rob, who had a degree in computer science from an elite private university, offered a similar assessment of how the skills he learned in the workshop—skills his classmates lacked—brought him closer to human nature. “Bike repair really got me into working with my hands,” he explained, “which is, like, so critical to being a human being—to be able to manipulate your environment and physical things. You don’t get that in school.” For Rob, the bikes that came out of that space were materializations of freegan values. Through problem solving and careful repair, decaying discarded parts became bikes that could provide sustainable transportation for decades. But the bikes were also markers of difference. In a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that freegans saw as full of “hipsters” riding “expensive fixed gears,” freegan bikes were almost ostentatiously worn looking and ugly. Some particularly unconventional activities for which freegans them- selves had little explanation made sense as projects that developed the hab- itus and the physical environment in a morally affirming way. After one freegan feast in Jeff’s apartment, eight of us stayed around to watch Ryan conduct a “skillshare” for the group. Ryan removed a handful of yucca leaves from his backpack and placed them on the floor. He demonstrated how to scrape the flesh off the leaves, which isolated the internal fibers. These, he explained, could be woven into rope. After half an hour, Ryan had created a drawstring for his hat, while the rest had only a few sloppy, short strands Making the City Second Nature 1039 American Journal of Sociology of fibers to show for their efforts. Nonetheless, the group was so enthralled by the event that, immediately after, they began discussing plans for simi- lar training in canning and preserving fruit, sewing clothes, and making wine. The moment was one of Durkheimian ð1965, p. 236Þ “collective ef- fervescence,” in which the social affirmation of freegans’ distinctive moral identities was amplified with palpable markers. These same objects could act as markers of moral difference in self-evidently “nonfreegan” situations. Freegans could—and did—ride their salvaged bikes to work or take dumpster-dived food to potlucks with nonfreegan friends, giving a moral tinge to otherwise problematic situations. Barbara described writing her lesson plans on the back sides of paper that she pulled from other teachers’ recycling ðor wasteÞ bins, a practice she readily noted set her apart despite their shared participation in paid employment. But Barbara’s “quirks” could have unintended consequences: she recounted that once, after sitting down with her dumpster-dived lunch, a colleague stood up and walked away, announcing, “I will sit here with my clean food.” Here, the “waste” Barbara at other times used to draw moral bound- aries evoked them when she had not intended to, providing an unintended “mold” for interaction ðsee Jerolmack and Tavory 2014Þ. While for free- gans objects recovered from the garbage could set them apart as moral, for nonfreegans they could invoke “pollution rules” that made them “wicked object1⁄2s of moral reprobation” ðDouglas 1966, p. 170Þ. Freegans could thus not seamlessly “enlist” the physical world ðsee Latour 2005Þ. Indeed, the use of these objects as moral markers could give freegans a sense of place in the urban environment even as it deepened their sense of being out of place in their social milieu. Moral Reminders in the Urban Frontier Finally, physical objects functioned as “moral reminders” for freegans’ moral motivations, including those developed or shared within the group, outside the group context. Like so many other self-identified freegans, Lola, an itin- erant art student who had come to New York in the summer of 2008, claimed to see the city as the antithesis of morality, averring, “I think that the urban culture is what I’m opposed to.” And, like other freegans, she also offered proof that she could turn the harshly unnatural city into a nat- ural urban frontier. Referencing her bike, she told me, “Bicycling is such a freeing feeling. You’re in direct contact with nature. The physical aspect of it is amazing. It feels to me like breaking through some kind of invisible barrier. . . . You can’t fall asleep on a fixed gear 1⁄2bicycle. You can’t just ig- nore things that are going on. You can’t just look up at the stars; it’s actu- ally being in contact and being directly involved with what is happening.” 1040 To Lola, nature was something with which she could be in “direct contact” in the city, found not by “look1⁄2ing up at the stars” but by engaging with her more immediate, built environs. Lola expressed particular pride at her fixed-gear bike: she built it her- self, which to her meant that “I know every part of it and understand why and how everything works.” As with becoming an “expert” on food, under- standing the material properties of her bicycle was crucial to Lola’s moral identity as someone living a more natural life than other urban denizens. More than that, though, her bicycle seemed to function as a personal totem, a ward keeping the immoral forces of the city at bay. In the summer of 2008, Lola spent a stint house-sitting a luxurious apartment in the Upper West Side. She invited me over, and I noted that she had crammed her bicycle into a tiny corner of her bedroom rather than leaving it elsewhere in the capacious apartment. She confided, “It felt really weird to stay here, so I brought my bike into my bedroom with me, just as a reminder.” Here was a moment when the clash between values and environment threatened to make her feel quite literally out of place, until Lola reworked that place in a small but tangible way. All freegans juggled tensions between their political ideals and everyday lives, but these contradictions were particularly acute for Ryan. Despite helping Jeff and David organize an “antitechnology” conference in 2009, Ryan had a degree in computer science and was working 40 hours a week in Connecticut programming touch-screen computers that, in his own words, “made it easier for rich people to watch TV.” That he was not just an or- dinary college-educated computer programmer, though, was inscribed on his person. When Ryan showed up at one freegan meeting in midsummer, he was wearing a backpack that he had built out of bicycle tire inner tubes and was clad in sandals he put together from a discarded fire hose. At- tached to his backpack was a trowel he told me he used to dig up edible plants he finds in long bicycle trips, one of which brought him to some of the most remote regions of northern Canada. He emphasized the impor- tance of his sensuous relationship to the materials: “When I buy something I really need, I don’t feel like I own it. I’m afraid to sew it, patch it up. This backpack, I can feel it. I know what’s wrong with it; I know what’s right with it. If something’s not working, I can cut it up and make it work for me in a new way. It’s all about ownership. . . . Once you make some- thing, you can control exactly what it’s going to do.” When I pressed Ryan as to why these skills were so important, he demurred: “I don’t know where exactly my learning is going towards.” A comment he made more infor- mally, though, was telling: “I came straight from work,” motioning to his backpack and shoes, suggesting that he had worn them to his rich clients’ houses. While, in such contexts, Ryan probably could not raise his “anti- Making the City Second Nature 1041 American Journal of Sociology civilization” beliefs, his evident skill in dealing with physical objects re- minded him that he was, in his own mind, more a rugged frontiersman than an urban professional. This was not the only time I saw freegans draw on practices toward material objects to remind themselves and others of their moral commit- ments in moments when these self-conceptions felt threatened. One De- cember evening, I attended a freegan feast in Madison’s Brooklyn flat, which she had purchased after quitting her corporate job. I noted my sur- prise that Madison’s building had a doorman; she replied, “I know, I didn’t feel great about it either, but look at what I did with it.” She then walked me around the flat showing how nearly every item of furniture had been taken “right off the street.” Analogously, Barbara once confessed to me something she had been hiding from the group: that she had recently taken a flight for a vacation. “Have you ever dumpster dived a plane?” she whispered, before taking from her backpack complementary food, napkins, and utensils she had acquired while walking past the first-class seating area. She did not show the items to others in the group. Instead, as she suggested, she recov- ered them because the objects themselves reminded her of an opportunity to actualize her moral motivations at an unexpected moment. Although some uses of physical objects as reminders were deliberate, ma- terials could call on freegans to put their environment back in its moral place when they were not intending to do so. One cold winter night, we ap- proached the back side of a Food Emporium, where, from a distance, it was clear there was a larger than usual amount of food. As we walked up, Bar- bara exclaimed, “Oh my god, this is going to be outrageous.” It was: the store was evidently destocking, and so large quantities of unexpired, non- perishable goods were on the sidewalk. This night’s event was supposed to be a “trash trailblaze”—where the group would quickly investigate new potential spots and then move on—but the group lingered long after every- one had taken what they could carry. When I asked Madison why we stayed, she opined, “It’s like an elephant graveyard. Right now, we’re just mourning the food.” Although it was ultimately store employees who put the waste on the curb and freegans who decided to imbue the waste with symbolic meaning, it was the wasted objects themselves that redirected freegan behavior. At other moments, these reminders had a more positive valence. In con- trast to a modern industrial food system built on standardization and pre- dictability, freegans embraced the unscripted moments of dumpster diving, averring that “it’s always unpredictable; that’s part of the adventure of it!” Reflecting Fine’s ð1998, p. 49Þ conclusion that “meaningful experiences of nature must include uncertainty,” I witnessed firsthand the excitement that emerged whenever there was a rare find, like a box of tempeh or a pome- granate—their unexpected appearances potent reminders that freegans were 1042 not shopping or even growing food, but doing something they saw as fun- damentally more natural. Waste could capture freegans’ energy even when not with freegan.info. Although food is wasted at predictable places and times, other items free- gans need to find in order to avoid spending money—clothes, toiletries, and appliances, to name a few—appear more stochastically. The “dumpster eye,” as one described it, was at times only at the margins of freegan conscious- ness ðsee Tavory 2010, p. 56Þ, but the right garbage could unexpectedly bring it to the forefront, breaking down barriers between when they were or were not acting on their freegan moral motivations. When I began to dumpster dive more myself, I realized that traversing the city on foot—often regardless of my intentions—took much longer than it had previously, as I zigzagged across streets in order to examine any garbage that looked re- motely promising. Some admitted that their practice of freeganism bordered on hoarding, because they felt a strong compulsion to “rescue” only marginally useful items. Observed one freegan, “In my apartment, we have all sorts of things lying around, because you never know when you’re going to need to build this or fix that. You just keep everything.” This ethos of “making do and getting by,” many freegans claimed, harkened not just to prehistoric foragers but, more recently, to homesteaders on the American frontier. But living out these values could be taxing: “I get tired of trying to save the world,” sighed Barbara, after spending an hour trying to find someone to take a shoe rack she had found on the sidewalk. Objects demanded freegans’ time and attention in other ways as well. While in the previous section I noted how building bikes from discarded parts was part of what helped freegans “mark” themselves as living more naturally, they were also a source of constant frustration. Salvaged bikes were constantly breaking down and needing new scavenged parts, which themselves would not last long. Similarly, the implacable materiality of food—namely, the fact that it perishes, and if it has been “rescued” from a dumpster, it perishes quickly—often led freegans to spend significant time paring moldy fruit, recooking and transforming old vegetables, or redis- tributing excess bread. Although on a purely rational level freegans knew that “rewasting” food had no additional negative environmental impact, they nonetheless exhorted themselves—often in private—to “not waste the waste.” This embodied set of practices reworked freegans’ world in a way they sensed as natural yet threatened to remind freegans of the very “unnaturalness” as these objects returned to a wasted state. CONCLUSION: MATERIALS, NATURE, AND MORALITY Although freeganism as a political movement is an intrinsically urban phe- nomenon, the social dimensions of city life—finding a place to live, working, 1043 Making the City Second Nature American Journal of Sociology and interacting with others—posed substantial barriers to individual free- gans acting on moral motivations with which their identities were closely bound. Freegan.info as a group provided ongoing reinforcements of free- gans’ moral motivations—much as the Durkheim-inspired conclusions of literatures on social movement “free spaces” and subcultures would suggest— but it only infrequently provided them with a social environment aligned with them. Nevertheless, freegans were able to achieve a sense of their place in the city, one that made living morally frequently unremarked and second nature. They did so through a habitus that both drew on and reconstructed the physical environment in line with their frequently unarticulated and var- ied conceptions of “nature.” While freeganism is no doubt an idiosyncratic movement, these findings have implications for studies on materiality, na- ture, and morality. Material objects can play a significant, and distinctive, role in social life. As recent work has shown, objects are not mere bearers of cultural mean- ings but can actively reshape those meanings ðLatour 2005; McDonnell 2010; Jerolmack and Tavory 2014Þ. I have added the assertion that material ob- jects—or, more generally, the nonsocial—can be the ends of moral life. In truth, “bringing materiality back in”—to evoke a sociological cliché—is consistent with common sense. Although “waste” is not a common object of moral concern, it is nonetheless arguable that significant moral action is di- rected toward nonhuman entities, such as “gods” or “nations” ðsee Cerulo 2009Þ. Physical representations of those entities, such as idols or flags, can call forth powerful moral commitments. Yet the moments when objects proved uncooperative—when bikes broke down, food rotted, or others interpreted waste in a radically different fashion—also speak to the complexities, limits, and risks of the material world in sustaining a moral self. The three roles of objects I have demonstrated here provide a basis for further research into the extent and role of the material world in moral life. The fact that freegans made living morally seem like second nature through their interactions with waste itself has intriguing implications. On one hand, waste’s banality would seem to reaffirm Durkheim’s ð1965, p. 52Þ asser- tion that mundane objects—ranging from “a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, 1⁄2or a house”—can be imbued with moral meaning. A cru- cifix around the neck could be a significant marker of moral boundaries; an old photo a potent reminder of familial commitments; a carefully sorted re- cycling bin proof of an ecological identity. Yet that freegans chose waste was not random. Waste for freegans was “polyvocal” ðMcDonnell 2010, p. 1803Þ: at once a symbol of capitalist immorality and privately a resource for moral living. Waste evokes intensely negative emotional and moral meanings in broader Western culture ðsee Douglas 1966; Abbott 2014Þ. In a group that set itself up in opposition to mainstream ðimÞmorality, using waste provided an effective way to leverage the adversity of the environment. High-end green 1044 consumption may be just a cover for elite distinction ðsee Johnston 2008; Elliott 2013Þ, but low-end salvaging is a way of abnegating a social status perceived as immoral through contaminating oneself with negatively coded objects. These findings also bear on literatures examining the social construction of nature. Sociologists have largely moved beyond older nature-city binaries, convincingly showing that urban denizens can have meaningful experiences of nature even in a modern metropolis ðWachsmuth 2012; Jerolmack 2013Þ. Some “radical constructivists” have gone further to claim that “in a funda- mental sense, there is nothing unnatural about New York City” ðHarvey 1996, p. 186; see also Heynen et al. 2006Þ. Yet my findings remind of an im- portant caveat: whether or not nature is “constructed” from a social scientific point of view, freegans would doubtlessly say that nature’s power as a grounding for morality stems from the fact that they perceived it as not constructed and not coming from society. Freegans, like many modern- day environmentalists and ecoconscious citizens, drew on nature as a po- tent, transcendent ideal, much as others might appeal to Christianity or socialism. Urban homesteaders, gardeners, or dumpster divers are not simply “think- ing” nature into existence, however. Nature is made through practice and interaction ðFine 1998; Jerolmack 2013Þ. While these interactions are in- variably shaped by social characteristics ðBell 1994; Jerolmack 2013Þ— freegans’ visions of nature, for example, reflected a distinctively Western and middle-class worldview—physical objects were also a key and indispens- able component of these constructions. Indeed, in the absence of physical referents, freegans’ construction of the city as natural would lack credibility, both to themselves and to others. By focusing on the physical material out of which nature is made, we can understand that, while nature may be socially constructed, it is not done so effortlessly or evenly. Even if freegans’ capacity to imbue the city with natural meaning supports a constructivist viewpoint, freegans implicitly understand that rendering the city natural is more dif- ficult than, say, doing the same to a rural farm. Further research should ex- amine how deploying the notoriously nebulous culture code of nature is facilitated or blocked by different physical environments. Finally, this article speaks to the resurgent sociological interest in moral- ity. I have offered an intervention into perennial debates about how moral beliefs relate to action by arguing that, although the two are rarely perfectly in sync, a moral habitus can nonetheless draw on the challenging aspects of the environment to create a context for acting on moral motivations. I do not want to imply that achieving an affirming sense of one’s moral place is inevitable or in all cases necessary; actors—including those who, like free- gans, appear to have strong moral identities—can and do live with glaring contradictions. I do, however, concur with those recent studies that suggest Making the City Second Nature 1045 American Journal of Sociology that at least some actors do have an internalized moral core and do make serious, if inconsistent, efforts to live up to it. Morality should not just be studied in terms of achieving a particular and often unattainable bar of “right” but also as part of the ongoing striving for the “good” ðJoas 2000, p. 168Þ. By thinking in terms of a moral habitus, we can refocus on this striving’s generativity of new practices, the formation of moral beliefs and identities through action, and the notion that living morally can be an almost subconscious second nature. Freegans had a sense they were living natu- rally but rarely could explicitly explain how. If freegans did manage to rework their physical environment in a way that gave them a sense of moral place, it came at a price. Living morally was something intrinsically desirable, yet at the same time, they recognized that morality could interfere with other things they desired, ranging from main- taining social relationships to being efficacious activists. They thus remind us that, as Durkheim ð1⁄21914 1973, p. 152Þ observed, “we cannot pursue moral ends without causing a split within ourselves, without offending the instincts and the penchants that are the most deeply rooted in our bodies.” The material dimensions of morality confirm that, precisely because morality is seen as coming from things outside of ourselves, making morality second nature often comes into conflict with the “first nature” of other identities or motivations. In the end, in motivating action that transforms the world, morality often presents a barrier—perhaps a physical one—to actions that would remake the world for other reasons and to other ends.

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Learn How to Style your Socks

You should keep the vivid color rules in mind when you're selecting eyeglasses and patterned socks, however there are various additional things to keep in mind particular to patterns. Unlike solid colors, these enjoyable dress socks are in a class all their own. Like any menswear category, interesting dress socks also arrive in luxury types. Silk is a go-to for the ties of men, but in addition, it works for socks. Silk socks are costly, and they're nowhere near as durable as cotton or wool. It's best to reserve these for formal events only. Cashmere presents qualities such as wool, but it is delicate. Delicacy comes at a high price and it is high maintenance when it comes to cleaning. Fabrication primarily defines dress sock types. There are along with the one that you choose depends on your needs. Cotton is the one you'll encounter the most since it's the cheapest to make, it is exceptionally lightweight, it's comfy and it's durable. In casual socks, you will discover versions but in apparel socks, it's ordinary to find pairs that combine cotton. Interesting Food Socks Funny dress socks are the perfect means to keep your appearance interesting without being too cool or on top. You don't have to spend thousands or consult a stylist to be noticed. You simply need to heed a few straightforward rules and select a pair of socks which you identify with.

Unlike your normal issue dress socks, fun novelty socks come in a large number of styles, lengths and styles. You need to know what's out there before you can choose the set that best suits you. Food socks are reserved for the many fun-loving guys out there. This usually means you've got a fun character and you spend your days in surroundings where your sense of pleasure is valued. If you're a fund manager to get a company, this might not be you. But if you just got hired as an engineer in Facebook, this might easily be your move. The Way to Wear Fun Dress Socks - A Guide to Men's Novelty Socks Fashion The stuffy the surroundings, the more you can play. Sock Lengths The only time it is possible to wear blue on blue (or any similar color in addition to similar color ) is if you wear tonal socks. This usually means you're wearing a pair of socks that is a different blue than your navy suit. It is not as bold as a pair that is yellowish or orange, but it produces a comparison. If you're going really bold, such as a Green Apple Polka Dot socks, do so in moderation. This shouldn't be the day you decide to show your cropped suiting pants off. You want to put on a pair of pants when you're standing with a classic or medium break, which rests atop your shoe. If you sit down, just a sliver of daring pattern will show through to the rest of the office. Anything more and it is going to be distracting for of the wrong reasons. Length is a very simple matter. You will find three sock lengths available on the market, just two of which can be in apparel socks. Your gym socks are likely socks. These will be the cotton socks that struck at your ankle bone. They are as casual as you can get and should never be worn to your location of business.

There are synthetics. Most socks you will find are created from a combination of synthetic fibers and wool or cotton. The mix makes a sock that provides comfort and longevity. Swagy Socks offers its trendy socks in a searchable cotton poly blend fabric complete with a cushioned heel. If you want fun dress socks that can last through the work year, this is the mix you want. Synthetics independently are a tough sell--they are too soft and too flimsy. Don't go rogue and randomly pick whatever color your spirit is leading you toward when you get dressed in the morning. There are rules about wearing these socks. The guiding force in fitting your brightly colored socks to the rest of your appearance is the color wheel. The color wheel should be your very best friend for every part of your wardrobe but for men's fun socks. The wheel is broken up into cool and warm colors. The warm colors are the reds, yellows and oranges; the cool ones are the greens, blues and purples in crazy socks for kids . If you're going to choose a contrasting vivid sock color, it should match the rest of your outfit. Greens complement oranges, reds match blues, purples match yellows, so forth and so forth. Types: Socks Fabrication Generally, the gentleman invests in neutral socks. All these will be the navy varieties you see businessmen. They're common but they are also dull. If you'd like your socks to stand out, you should aim for pop colors (also referred to as bright solids), intricate designs or any fantastic old fashioned novelty. We will dive deeper into each class but it's important to know when mad fun socks for men are okay. As an example, let's say you're wearing a navy suit and you pull a pair of purple socks. This appearance doesn't achieve the amount of comparison you were hoping for. Blue and purple are in precisely the exact same side of the color wheel and so cancel each other out. If you would like to produce an impression, travel throughout the wheel for an orange or yellow sock. These bright hues stand out from the navy suit while also complementing it.

The Rules for Bright Colorful Socks Semi-formal parties like summer weddings, happy hour, dates, dinners with friends and nights out at the concerts or movies are great places to break out entertaining dress socks. The news about entertaining dress socks is there are areas where they're restricted. If you are attending a black-tie design or a conventional wedding, it's best to leave your American Flag Socks in the home. It's okay to go for a bold pattern such as polka dots or stripes if the rest of your outfit is toned down. Before deciding how bold you want to be get a feel for the event. It's usually a safe bet to skip socks for all these events. Socks Lengths Types & Styles Where You Should Wear Your Fun Dress Socks

Go Bold with Patterned and Polka Dotted Socks Apparel socks, for example your fun patterned layout socks, will probably be socks. The name is self-explanatory--these socks grow to a mid-calf. They are just large enough to keep your ankles and lower leg covered when your pant leg climbs. Occasionally, you'll encounter a pair but this is old school. And not your daddy's definition of college. These were worn by knights from times beneath their armor to protect against disease. There's no reason, unless you reside in the tundra. Mid-calf should become your length of choice for fun dress socks. If you live in a cold weather, you know all too well how it feels to get cold toes despite sporting socks and sneakers. You will need some reinforcement for the winter, while cotton is easily accessible and widely available. Wool socks cost a bit more but they provide the insulation for those days. Socks Styles

Food patterned socks occupy a different distance we have discussed. They are the perfect mixture of adventure, personality and kitsch. They can add your look that screams fun and a level of intrigue. The previous rules apply. So be sure to steer clear of any clashing involving your Morning Coffee socks and the rest of your look. Additionally, it patterned socks for less formal looks. Gents who invest the day should prevent them. However, for guys who rub elbows with their peers at a area that is co-working , men’s food socks are ideal.

Another way to ensure you're on the right track is to ensure your novelty socks have a minimum of one color from the rest of your outfit. Let's say you're wearing a charcoal suit. It is possible to pair them back to purple socks if you prefer but they should have a pattern with a base or some hint. Among the styles in fun dress socks is your statement color. Colorful socks are intended to be viewed and draw attention. Since people will be sizing up your sock sport, it is important to pull off this style move correctly. For work, the rules are a little more relaxed. If you operate in a painfully traditional office, learn to read the room. While it's good to stand out, novelty socks may not go over well with your conservative bosses. Guys who are employed in businesses like banking or law may not get a lot of leeway. But men who work for startups, especially in the technology space, and smaller companies will not have a strict dress code. In these offices, feel free to express your character. In case you have a significant occupation, your wardrobe is most likely serious. You're no play and all work from head to toe, but it does not have to be this way. Fun apparel socks can provide the tiny shot of nature humor and edge you need to make your work outfits enjoyable. You do not have to anger from the dress code to create an impression. Instead, you can slide on a set of pleasure socks to turn up the style factor.

Visit: Socks From Hell

[weshystudentloveblr-blog]

Options For Immediate Products Of Clash Royale Hack

click These decks are classified as the just the thing strategy to budge on the reduce arenas approximately the higher ranks in which the crown players love to circulate. Consequently you’ve reach on your path from beginning to end Arena One, A couple in addition to Three, save for at this instant the patios in which contracted a person with the youthful perform am real dawn for you to dry up. These persons ensue smart to the hut junk e-mail, otherwise massive impetuses and have absolutely terraces meant to counter them. In other words, you're jabbed in the dwindling degrees of arena four soon you develop nearly clear different veranda inklings. But when you go to build up so as to deck people discover worry regarding fresh credit card which people before payed no heed to while break make somewhere your home with your all-in blow up veranda – if you’re collect that would need to look at different decisions? Many of these tag appear awe-inspiring, nevertheless making them toward synergise with supplementary certificates, in a way that's complex for you to counter, isn't a cool undertaking and with this plane you can’t ever have a deck that's subject without stopping truly a single kind of join in. Extending many inside with one move forward strat a moment ago isn’t likely to operate frequently as much as necessary to be able to mill on view those gains. Luckily in your case, we’ve previously managed all of those wretched rivals during arena 4, five after that 6 and have absolutely subsisted to express to the story. This needed a significant little employment, bar in due course we managed to get made known full of life which has a a small amount of immense decks to share with you together with you. Support planned that the meta is actually altering, so these decks can need a unimportant toy with, however for by far the most element these will perform a person respectable. REPORT The very best and also most awful license arrived Battle Royale These acme tag can help you ascend from the arenas inside almost no time, on the contrary survived weary of these broken besides, since they can certainly sacrificed that you game birds after you require the accomplish. The Conflict Royale verandahs in order to attain at home Arena 1, 2 in addition to 3 Your own journey on the principal arenas clothed in Supercell’s affect tag competition is a solid one particular, level from the extraordinarily outset. Auspiciously these verandahs will offer that you simply high pro. The curbed temptation veranda: Hog Participant, Elf Clip or barrel, Knight, Followers, Skeleton Military, Inferno Structure, Explode, Move If you’ve taken part in Battle Royale in any raze throughout the last several months you’ll doubtless have come all over nearly departure regarding this specific veranda, when all people appears to be getting through that. The hoax is to implement it with skill. Typically, it’s foreseen at the a little bit advanced even out with Princesses afterward Elf Teams permitting the idea to really outclass, nevertheless with those greeting card being real unavailable to the majority in the let fall arenas, around customization should be applied. The ideal strategy for playing a part that is determine come again? suggest credit card (Arrows, Move, Rocket etc) your current adversary transpires handling earlier upon, and then seek to enticement this unfashionable. While negative elixir trades subsist not at all model, with this terrace diving a Skeleton Militia before Gofer to attempt to enticement out a time period like to the same degree Arrows occurs what you long for to complete. Next once upon a time the enter is located out of order anyone transmit spanning a Troll Bat berrel, on your current adversaries system watching the wound can be found in. After instance sequences subtle you need to be capable of send out out a Explode with the earn. The Firestorm Structure after that Zap be supposed to existed whatever you must hug off any move forward and most in the troops at this time remain pure in transacting business with a large amount hazards you'll grasp as of this equal. Make certain to work with the Minions in case you show up against a Helium balloon deck, being your own fluttering spoil remains ceiling. If you have The Log then that’s a great improvement to the constantly in place associated with Zap. The Massive Beatdown: Giant, Witch, Musketeer, Diminutive P.E.K.K.A., Minions, Gravestone, Arrows Explode The general brainstorm here is a clean Big promote strat, with all the Witch in addition to Musketeer with regard to copy, since the Witch may split plaster damage to greater group while the Musketeer controls nice-looking soprano single-target break. Adjusted your current Big operating from the fund connected with your own 50 percent along with people should have adequate elixir in the direction of give rise to most a few around the subject, save for make certain an individual lone pass on every single one now once your challenger happens struggling. Once you master the timings with this three-character press on, therefore you'll be able to go on it awake an amount moreover attempt to count the motivation using the expiration involving ones Headstone. In the event you understand reasonable and then you'll have all several big-value certificates next around even more skeletons all over for your advocate. You will need somewhat of time for it to master, except befits unmanageable to halt. Defence is extremely ceiling at this juncture, hence for a while leave out the Headstone within the new road for you to decelerate a counter impetus is really a sound point. In spite of this that’s without favoritism easy to counter-top next top players certainly may. This can be definitely a patio in support of Arena Four in addition to for a time trendy 5, yet when you thump Arena Six to eight next maybe search for another solution in the function of we struggled to make this specific creation there. A screenshot from the Large now Clash Royale. The Giant Beatdown takes a Massive improbable in front © SUPERCELL The Golem Boiler: Wizard, Golem, Barbarians, Gofer, Headstone, Arrows, Whizz, Lightning Time was the Big terrace beyond switch on for you to slow stylish Arena Six to eight therefore this can be a reach the summit of flog, since they compete equally also. The Golem, which you can simply get involved Arena Half a dozen, in fact exchanges the Large, other than arranges a considerably superior smash up possibility, middle you will need excluding sponsorship near overcome that. Your current Cronies afterward Barbarians am located your current back-up scratch dealers, together with your Wizard, which might be showed nastily or perhaps defensively. Urge a couple of these at the back of a Golem beat the structure and you will be alive practically positive of being responsible for the idea. Ones suggests, besides Lightning which is far better for provoking release software behind schedule within the online game lots of enough time, subsist your own focal preventive bludgeons, while the Tombstone is the most suitable used to distract plus absorb high-damage doers that leave the idea along the canal. Houses like so Bomb next Hellhole Structures remain your own weakness, however they aren’t everything nothing special in this class in addition to, even though they ensue, you could have Cronies who is going to gets something done a little sturdy am successful to them both.

[socks-from-hell-blog]

Stylish Men Wear Socks

Types: Socks Fabrication Socks Designs Food patterned socks occupy a different space than the styles we have discussed. They're an ideal mixture of adventure character and kitsch. They can add a look that screams fun and a level of intrigue. The rules apply however. Be sure to avoid any clashing involving your Morning Coffee socks and the rest of your look. Also, it patterned socks for formal looks. Gents who invest the day should prevent them. However, for guys who rub elbows with their peers in a area that is co-working food socks are perfect. Lastly, there are synthetics. Most socks you will find are crafted from a blend of cotton or wool and synthetic fibers. The combination creates a durable sock that offers comfort and longevity. Swaggy Socks provides all of its cool socks in a searchable cotton blend fabric complete with a padded heel. If you want fun dress socks that will last through the work year, this is. Synthetics by themselves are a tough sell--they are too soft and too flimsy. Don't go rogue and randomly select whatever color your soul is directing you toward once you get dressed in the morning. There are rules about wearing those socks. The directing force in matching your brightly colored socks to the remainder of your appearance is the color wheel. The color wheel ought to be your best friend for every part of your wardrobe but especially for men's fun socks. The wheel is divided into warm and cool colors. The warm colors are the reds, yellows and oranges; the cool ones are the greens, blues and purples. If you are going to choose a contrasting vivid sock color, it should complement the rest of your outfit. Greens complement reds, oranges complement blues, purples complement yellows, so forth and so forth.

For example, let's say you are sporting a navy suit and you pull on a pair of sexy high thigh socks. This look doesn't attain the level of contrast you were hoping for. Purple and blue are in precisely the same side of the color wheel and so cancel each other out. Travel throughout the wheel to get an yellowish or orange sock, if you want to make a statement. These hues stick out against your navy suit while at the same time complementing it. Another way is to ensure that your novelty socks have at least one color from the rest of your outfit. Let's say you're wearing a charcoal gray suit. It is possible to pair them back to purple socks if you prefer but they ought to have a blueprint with a base or at least some hint. For work, the principles are relaxed. If you operate in a painfully traditional office, learn to read the space. While it's good to stand out, novelty socks may not go over well with your conservative bosses. Guys who work in storied industries like law or banking may not get a lot of leeway. But guys who work for startups, specifically in the technology space, and smaller businesses will not have a strict dress code. In such offices, feel free to express your personality.

The Rules for Bright Colorful Socks

Funny dress socks are the perfect way to keep your look interesting without being too trendy or on top. Consult a stylist or you do not need to spend thousands. You need to heed a few straightforward rules and select a pair of socks that you identify with. Go Bold with Patterned and Polka Dotted Socks Length is a simple issue. You will find three sock lengths on the market, just two of which can be in apparel socks. Your gym socks are ankle socks. All these are the cotton socks that hit in your ankle . They are as casual as you can get and should not be worn for the place of business. In general, the gentleman that is dandy invests heavily in neutral socks. These are the navy varieties you see businessmen. They are common but they are also dull. If you want your socks to stand out, you should aim for pop colors (also referred to as bright solids), intricate designs or any fantastic old fashioned novelty. We will dive deeper into each category but first it's important to understand when crazy fun socks for guys are okay. Dress sock forms are defined by manufacture. There are along with the one that you choose is dependent upon your individual needs. Cotton is it is extremely lightweight, it is comfortable and it's durable. In casual socks, you'll discover versions made of 100% cotton, but in apparel socks, it is normal to find pairs which unite cotton with fine fabrics.

Your wardrobe is probably severe if you've got a job. You are no play and all work from head to toe, but it does not have to be this way. Fun apparel socks can offer the injection of humor, personality and edge you need to create your work outfits exciting. You do not have to rage against the dress code to make an impression. Alternatively, you can slip on a set of fun socks to turn the style variable. Socks Lengths Types & Styles The only time you can wear blue blue (or some other similar color in addition to similar colour ) is if you wear tonal socks. That means you're sporting a pair of socks that is another blue than your navy suit. It is not quite as bold as a orange or yellow pair, but it creates a contrast. Semi-formal gatherings like summer weddings, happy hour, dates, dinners with friends and nights out at the concerts or movies are great areas to break out fun dress socks. Dress socks, including your fun patterned layout socks, will probably be mid-calf socks. The name is self-explanatory--these socks rise to a mid-calf. They're just large enough to keep your ankles and lower leg coated when your knee rises. You'll encounter a set that is knee-length but this is old school. And not your dad's definition of college. Knights from times wore these beneath their armor to protect against disease. Unless you reside in the frozen tundra, there is no reason. Mid-calf should be your length of selection for pleasure dress socks. If you live in a cold weather, you know all too well how it feels to get feet despite sporting socks and sneakers. You need some reinforcement for the winter while cotton is easily accessible and widely available. Wool socks cost a bit more but they supply the perfect insulation for those blustery days. One of the styles in enjoyable dress socks is your statement color. Bright colorful socks are meant to be viewed and instantly draw focus downward. Since folks will be sizing up your sock game, it's important to pull this off fashion move correctly.

Similar to any other menswear category, interesting dress socks also arrive in luxury types. Silk is a go-to for men's ties, but it works for socks. Silk socks are expensive, and they are nowhere near as durable as cotton or wool. It is ideal to reserve these for formal occasions. Cashmere presents hot qualities such as wool, but it's delicate. When it comes to cleaning, delicacy comes at a high cost and it is high maintenance. If you are going daring, like a Green Apple Polka Dot socks, do so in moderation. This shouldn't be the day you decide to show your new suiting pants that are cropped off. You wish to wear a pair of pants when you're standing with a medium or timeless break, which rests atop your shoe. Just a sliver of pattern will show through the remainder of the workplace, when you sit down. Anything more and it'll be distracting for all the wrong reasons. Fun Food Socks Unlike your standard issue dress socks, fun novelty socks come in a large number of lengths, styles and styles. You want to understand what's out there, before you are able to pick the pair that best suits you. You should keep the bright color rules in mind when you're picking eyeglasses and patterned socks, but there are various things to keep to patterns. Unlike solid colors, these enjoyable apparel socks are in a class all their own. How to Wear Fun Dress Socks - A Guide to Men's Novelty Socks Fashion

Sock Lengths The less stuffy the surroundings, the more you may play with. Where You Should Wear Your Fun Dress Socks The wonderful news about entertaining dress socks is that there are places. If you're attending a black-tie design or a traditional wedding, it is ideal to leave your American Flag Socks in the home. It's acceptable to go for a bold pattern such as polka dots or stripes in the event the rest of your outfit is toned down. Before deciding how daring you want to be, get a feel for the event first. However, it's usually a safe bet to skip novelty socks for all these occasions. Food socks are reserved for the many fun-loving men out there. This usually means that you've got a fun personality and you spend in surroundings where your sense of pleasure is greatly valued. If you're a hedge fund manager to get a business, this might not be you. But if you just got hired as an engineer in Facebook, this could be your move.

Visit Socks From Hell for more.

[socks-from-hell-blog]

Colorful Happy Socks Ideas

Types: Socks Fabrication Socks Designs Food patterned socks occupy a different distance than the styles we have discussed. They are the perfect mixture of kitsch, experience and personality. They could add a look that screams fun and a level of intrigue. The prior rules apply however. So be sure to avoid any clashing involving your Morning Coffee socks and the remainder of your look. Also, it patterned socks for less looks. Gents who invest the day suited up at the boardroom should prevent them. But for guys who rub elbows with their peers in a co-working space, men meals socks are ideal. Lastly, there are synthetics. Most socks you'll discover are created from a combination of synthetic fibers and wool or cotton. The mix creates a sock that offers comfort and longevity. Swaggy Socks provides all of its trendy socks in a cotton blend fabric complete with a cushioned heel. If you want fun dress socks that can last through the work year, this is. Synthetics independently are a tough sell--they are too soft and too flimsy. Don't go rogue and randomly pick whatever color your soul is leading you toward once you get dressed in the morning. There are rules about wearing these socks. The directing force in matching your brightly colored socks into the rest of your appearance is your color wheel. The color wheel should be your very best buddy for each part of the wardrobe but especially for men's enjoyable socks. The wheel is divided into hot and cool colors. The warm colors are the reds, yellows and oranges; the trendy ones are the greens, blues and purples. If you are likely to pick a contrasting bright sock color, it should complement the rest of your outfit. Greens complement oranges, reds match blues, purples match yellow  chirstmas socks.

For example, let's say you are sporting a navy suit and you pull on a pair of purple socks. This look doesn't achieve the level of comparison you were hoping for. Blue and purple are in the side of the color wheel and thus cancel each other out. Travel throughout the wheel for an sock if you would like to produce an impression. These hues stick out against your navy suit while also complementing it. Another way to ensure you're on the right track is to ensure that your novelty socks have a minumum of one colour from the rest of your outfit. Let's say you are wearing a charcoal grey suit. You can pair them straight back to purple socks if you like but they should have a blueprint with a base or at least some hint of grey to keep things cohesive. For work, the principles are relaxed. If you operate in a painfully traditional workplace, learn how to read the room. While it's great to stand out, novelty socks may not go over well with your conservative supervisors. Guys who work in storied businesses like banking or legislation might not get a lot of leeway. But men working for startups, especially in the technology space, and smaller companies will not have a strict dress code. In such offices, feel free to express your character.

The Rules for Bright Colorful Socks

Funny dress socks are the ideal means to keep your appearance interesting without being overly cool or over the top. Consult with a stylist to stand out or you don't have to spend thousands. You just need to heed a few straightforward rules and select a pair of socks which you identify with. Go Bold with Patterned and Polka Dotted Socks Length is a simple issue. There are three sock lengths on the market, only two of which can be in apparel socks. Your gym socks are probably ankle socks. All these are the cotton socks which struck in your ankle bone. They're as casual as you can get and should not be worn for the location of business. Generally, the gentleman that is dandy invests heavily in neutral socks. All these are the navy, black and charcoal gray varieties you see businessmen. They're common but they are also dull. If you want your socks to stand out, you should aim for pop colours (also known as bright solids), intricate patterns or some fantastic old fashioned novelty. We will dive deeper into every category but first it's important that you know when mad fun socks for guys are acceptable. Dress sock forms are mainly characterized by fabrication. There are along with the one you choose depends on your unique needs. Cotton is it's extremely lightweight, it is comfortable and it's durable. In casual socks, you'll find versions but in apparel socks, it's ordinary to find pairs which unite cotton.

In case you have a serious occupation, your apparel is most likely equally serious. You're all work and no play from head to toe, however it does not need to be this way. Fun apparel socks can offer the injection of humor, nature and edge you want to create your work outfits exciting . You do not need to anger from the dress code to create an impression. Instead, you can slide on a set of fun socks to turn up the style factor without distracting from the rest of your look. Socks Lengths Types & Styles The only time it is possible to wear blue blue (or any similar color on top of similar color) is if you wear tonal socks. That usually means you're sporting a pair of socks that's another blue than your navy suit. It's not quite as bold as a group, but it creates a comparison. Semi-formal parties for example summer weddings, happy hour, dates, dinners with friends and nights out at the concerts or movies are great places to break out fun dress socks. Dress socks, including your fun patterned layout socks, will probably be socks. The name is self-explanatory--these socks grow to your mid-calf. They're just large enough to keep your ankles and lower leg covered when your pant leg climbs. Occasionally, you'll come across a pair but this is very old school. And not your dad's definition of old school. These were worn by knights from medieval times under their armor to protect against disease. There is no reason, unless you live in the frozen tundra. Mid-calf ought to become your length of selection for novelty pleasure dress socks. If you reside in a cold climate, you know all too well how it feels to get cold toes despite wearing socks and shoes. You will need some reinforcement for the winter, while cotton is readily accessible and widely available. Wool socks cost a bit more but they provide the insulation for those days. Among the vital styles in enjoyable dress socks is the announcement color. Colorful socks are meant to be viewed and instantly draw attention downward. Since folks will be sizing up your sock sport, it's important to pull off this style move correctly.

Like any menswear class, interesting dress socks also come in luxury forms. Silk is a go-to for the ties of men, but it works for socks. Silk socks are expensive, and they're nowhere near as durable as cotton or wool. It's ideal to book these for events. Cashmere offers hot qualities like wool, but it's delicate. When it comes to cleaning delicacy comes at a price and it's high maintenance. If you're going really bold, like a Green Apple Polka Dot socks, do so in moderation. This should not be the day you decide to show off your cropped suiting pants. You want to put on a pair of trousers when you are standing, with a medium or timeless break, which rests atop your shoe. Just a sliver of pattern will show through to the rest of the office when you sit down. Anything more and it is going to be distracting for of the wrong reasons. Interesting Food Socks Unlike your standard issue dress socks, fun novelty socks come in a large number of types, lengths and styles. You need to know what's out there before you can choose the pair that best suits you. You ought to keep the color rules when you're selecting eyeglasses and patterned socks, however there are some things to keep in mind specific to patterns. Unlike solid colors, these fun apparel socks are in a class all their own. The Way to Wear Fun Dress Socks - A Guide to Men's Novelty Socks Fashion

Sock Lengths The less stuffy the surroundings, the more you can play with. Where You Need To Wear Your Fun Dress Socks The news about fun dress socks is that there are not many areas. If you're attending a black-tie design or a conventional wedding, it's ideal to leave your American Flag Socks in the home. It's acceptable to go for a bold pattern like polka dots or stripes in the event the rest of your outfit is toned down. Before deciding how bold you want to be, get a sense of the event first. But, it's usually a safe bet to bypass socks for all these occasions. Food socks are earmarked for the many fun-loving men out there. This means that you've got a fun personality where your sense of fun is greatly appreciated, and you spend in surroundings. This might not be you, if you're a fund manager to get a 200-year-old company. But in the event that you just got hired as an engineer at Facebook, this might be your go-to move.

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Best Socks Guide-Crazy socks for kids and men

Another way to be certain you're on the ideal track is to make sure your novelty socks have a minimum of one color from the rest of your outfit. Let's say you are wearing a charcoal gray suit. It is possible to pair them back to purple socks if you prefer but they ought to have a blueprint with a base or at least some hint.

Interesting Food Socks Sock Lengths Funny dress socks are the ideal way. You don't have to spend tens of thousands or consult with a stylist to stand out. You simply need to heed a few straightforward rules and select a pair of socks that you identify . The Rules for Bright Colorful Socks Unlike your standard issue dress socks, fun novelty socks come in a multitude of styles, lengths and types. You want to know what's out there, before you are able to pick the pair that best suits you. Where You Need To Wear Your Fun Dress Socks For work, the principles are relaxed. If you operate in a traditional workplace, learn to read the room. While it's great to stand out, novelty socks may not go over well with your conservative supervisors. Guys who are employed in industries like legislation or banking may not find a lot of leeway. But guys working for startups, specifically in the tech area, and smaller businesses will not have a strict dress code. In such offices, feel free to express your character. If you've got a job that is significant, your wardrobe is most likely serious. It doesn't have to be this way, although you are no play and all work from head to toe. Fun dress socks can provide the shot of personality, humor and edge you want to make your work outfits exciting. You do not have to anger from the dress code to make an impression. Instead, you can slide on a set of pleasure socks to turn up the style factor. For example, let's say you are wearing a navy suit and you pull on a pair of purple socks. This appearance will not achieve the level of comparison you're hoping for. Blue and purple are from the side of the color wheel and so cancel each other out. Travel throughout the wheel for an yellowish or orange sock, if you would like to produce a statement. These hues stand out from the navy suit while complementing it. Do not go rogue and randomly pick whatever color your soul is directing you toward once you get dressed in the morning. There are rules about wearing these socks. The directing force in matching your brightly colored socks to the rest of your look is the color wheel. The color wheel should be your best friend for each part of the wardrobe but especially for men's fun socks or crazy socks for kids . The wheel is essentially broken up into hot and cool colors. The warm colors are the reds, yellows and oranges; the cool ones are the blues, greens and purples. If you're likely to pick a contrasting bright sock color, it should complement the rest of your outfit. Greens complement oranges, reds complement blues, purples complement yellows, so on etc. Length is a simple matter. You will find three sock lengths available on the current market, only two of which are in apparel socks. Your gym socks are likely ankle socks. These will be the athletic cotton socks which hit right at your . They are as casual as you can get and should not be worn to your location of business. There are synthetics. Most socks you will find are crafted from a combination of synthetic fibers and cotton or wool. The mix makes a sock that provides comfort and longevity. Swaggy Socks provides all its trendy socks in a cotton poly blend fabric complete with a padded heel. If you want fun dress socks that can last during the work year, this is the blend you desire. Synthetics independently are a tough sell--they are too delicate and too flimsy. Apparel socks, for example your fun patterned layout socks, will probably be mid-calf socks. The name is self-explanatory--these socks rise to your mid-calf. They're just large enough to maintain your ankles and lower leg covered when your pant leg climbs. You'll encounter a pair but this is school. And not just your dad's definition of old college. Knights from medieval times wore these under their armor. Unless you reside in the frozen tundra, there is no reason. Mid-calf ought to become your length of choice for novelty pleasure dress socks. Types: Socks Fabrication

The wonderful news about entertaining dress socks is there are areas where they're restricted. If you are attending a black-tie fundraiser or a conventional wedding, it's ideal to leave your American Flag Socks in the home. It's okay to go to get a bold pattern such as polka dots or stripes if the rest of your outfit is toned down. Get a sense of the event before deciding you want to be. However, it's usually a safe bet to skip socks for these events. The only time you can wear blue on blue (or any similar color in addition to similar color) is when you wear tonal socks. That means you're wearing a pair of socks that's a different blue than your navy suit. It's not as bold as a pair, but it produces a comparison.

Go Bold with Polka and Patterned Dotted Socks

Food patterned socks occupy a different distance we have discussed. They're the perfect mixture of personality, experience and kitsch. They could add a level of intrigue. The rules apply however. Be sure to avoid any clashing between your Morning Coffee socks and the remainder of your look. Also, it's best to reserve meals patterned socks for formal looks. Gents who invest the day should avoid them. But for guys who rub elbows with their peers at a area that is co-working , mens meals socks are perfect. Socks Styles Similar to any other menswear class, interesting dress socks also arrive in luxury forms. Silk is a go-to for men's ties, but in addition, it functions for socks. Silk socks are costly, and they are nowhere near as durable as cotton or wool. It's best to book these for events. Cashmere presents qualities such as wool, but it's delicate. When it comes to cleaning, delicacy comes at a price and it is high maintenance. Among the vital styles in fun dress socks is the announcement colour. Bright colorful socks are intended to be viewed and instantly draw focus downward. Since folks will be sizing up your sock game, it is important to pull this off style move properly. If you are going daring, such as a Green Apple Polka Dot socks, do so in moderation. This shouldn't be the day you decide to show off your new suiting pants that are cropped. You want to put on a pair of pants with a moderate or classic break, which rests atop your shoe when you're standing. Just a sliver of pattern will show through to the rest of the workplace when you sit down. Anything more and it'll be distracting for of the wrong reasons. The stuffy the environment, the more you may play. Socks Lengths, Types & Styles

Semi-formal parties like summer weddings, happy hour, dates, dinners with friends and nights out in the concerts or movies are fantastic places to break out entertaining dress socks. Generally, the gentleman invests heavily in neutral socks. These are the navy varieties you see on everyday businessmen. They're common but they are also boring. If you want your socks to stand out, you should aim for pop colors (also referred to as bright solids), intricate patterns or some good old fashioned novelty. We'll dive deeper into each category but first it's important that you know when crazy fun socks for men are okay. You should keep the color rules in mind while you're selecting eyeglasses and patterned socks, but there are various other things to keep to patterns. Unlike solid colors, these enjoyable dress socks are in a class all their own. If you live in a cold weather, you know all too well how it seems to get cold feet despite sporting socks and shoes. You will need some reinforcement for the winter, while cotton is readily accessible and widely available. Wool socks cost a bit more but they provide the insulation for those blustery days.

Food socks are earmarked for the many fun-loving men out there. This usually means you've got a fun character and you spend in surroundings where your sense of fun is greatly appreciated. If you're a hedge fund manager to get a business, this may not be you. But if you just got hired as an engineer in Facebook, this could be your go-to move.

The Way to Wear Fun Dress Socks - A Guide to Men's Novelty Socks Fashion Dress sock forms are primarily defined by manufacture. There are five fabrics you will encounter and the one you choose depends on your needs. Cotton is the one that you'll run into the most because it's the cheapest to produce, it is extremely lightweight, it's comfy and it's durable. In socks, you'll discover versions but in dress socks, it's normal to find pairs that unite cotton with other fine fabrics. 

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